The quiet crackling from the speaker of the radio cuts through the silence. Simon’s attention turns to the nearly muted sound.
He reaches for the radio, but the restraints holding him to the heavy metal chair pull him back down. He stretches his arm out extends his fingers. The tips barely brush the hard, plastic casing of the radio.
‘I gotta get to it.’ He thinks to himself. ‘There has to be some information about what’s going on.’
Simon grabs the chain between the cuffs and starts to pull. The grinding squeak of the chair’s heavy metal legs reverberates through the room. He sits back down and reaches for the radio again. The cuffs clasp tighter around his wrist. His fingernails catch the slots covering the speaker.
‘I’m almost there.’ He begins to pull on the radio. The radio begins to wobble.
‘Please don’t fall over, please don’t fall.’ he says quietly.
The radio tilts over and crashes to the floor. ‘Dammit! She’s gonna know I touched it now.’
The faint sound of footsteps slowly walking across the floor on the other side of the door startles Simon. ‘Dammit! She’s back! There’s no way I can get to that radio. Ahhh, Simon, you really got yourself into a predicament now.’
The door handle begins to turn. Simon starts pushing the chair back to its original place. He watches the door opening as its rusted hinges grate and groan.
He clears some of the papers off the desk and lays his head down. He closes his eyes, ‘Maybe if I pretend to be asleep….’ He thinks to himself, ‘…she won’t know I did it.’
He hears the door close. Rapid red pulsations of lights behind his tightly squeezed eyes blink in rhythm with his heart. He feels a hand gently push his shoulder.
‘Simon, Simon wake up.’
The familiarity of the voice pings in his ear. He opens his eyes to the blinding lights of the room. He looks over his shoulder; his eyes come back into focus. ‘Kate?’
Chapter 17
Kate begins viciously looking in the drawers of the desk. She tosses aside folders full of papers and other document on the floor. Simon looks at Kate as she intensely searches.
‘Simon is there a key for the handcuffs around here?’ Simon shrugs his shoulders, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see on. Why, what do you need it for?’
Kate runs over to another desk and starts hunting throw its drawers, ‘We need a key go get you out of those cuffs.’
‘Get me out of the cuffs? And why are we going to get me out? By the way, how did you get in here?’
‘Through the door.’ Kate replies, ‘The same way you got in here. Did you see that woman put a key anywhere? Like a spare key?’
Simon looks down at the pile of papers lying on the floor, ‘No, I didn’t see one. But, Officer Carlson locked the door…’
Kate stops looking through the drawers. She stands up straight and glares at Simon.
‘I threw a brick through a car window. Then I called the cops. Then I ran here and waited outside for someone to come out. I knew they would let me in because I’m breaking this curfew thing they have going on. Now I’m here, you know how I got here and hopefully any questions you may have in the future can wait until we get you out.’
‘You didn’t answer all of them.’ Simon sternly replies, ‘you didn’t say why I have to get out of here. If I escape, I could be in more trouble than I am now.’
Kate starts to open her mouth. Simon quickly cuts her off, ‘And yes I must be in some kind of trouble. They don’t handcuff law abiding citizens to chairs. I appreciate your efforts, but I’m not going anywhere.’
Kate storms over to Simon. She grabs him by his shirt collar and yanks him toward her, jerking his neck in the process.
‘Simon, I’m trying to help you. Rachael is dead, and they’re looking to pin her murder on you. If you don’t come with me now, you might not have another chance. I’m trying to protect you.’
Simon looks down at the floor. The cold metal of the cuff around his numbed wrist is a conformation that he may not be there to just be questioned.
‘Why me?’ he asks, ‘I didn’t do anything. How do you…what makes you believe this?’
Kate lets go of his collar, ‘The police were at my house earlier. I heard you name come across the cop’s walkie talkie. I saw what happened to her, and there is no way they will believe the truth.’
Simon runs his fingers through his hair. He feels his hand mix the small beads of sweat into the crown of his head. ‘We need something metal and skinny, like a bobby pin or a paperclip. Do you have a bobby pin by any chance?’
‘No, I don’t use bobby pins.’ Kate replies, ‘I have a regular safety pin. Will that work?’ Simon shakes his head, ‘No, we need something thicker. There has to be a paperclip around here somewhere. For God’s sake, this is an office.’
Kate looks over the desk. She picks up two pieces of paper clipped together. She removes the clip and gives it to Simon, ‘Will this do?’ Simon glances as the clip, ‘Yea, now bend it and make a little hook at the end.’
Kate places the end of the paperclip on the desk and starts to bend it. Simon grabs her arm, ‘No it has to be smaller. Bend it just at the tip.’
Simon slides his hand down her arm and rests his fingers over hers. He guides them down the paperclip and stops when he reaches the desired length.
‘Right there,’ he says ‘now just bend it into a little hook.’ Kate bends the paperclip and hands it to Simon. Simon inserts the hook into the lock and begins wiggling it around. ‘It should pop, it’s just hard to do it with one hand.’
‘I didn’t know you knew how to pick locks.’ Kate says with intrigue. Simon stops and smiles, ‘I’m a man of many talents. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
Simon starts picking the lock, but stops. ‘Kate? When you said one would believe me, what did you mean by that?’
A tense pause wallows in the air. Kate is reluctant to look at Simon’s inquisitive face. She draws in a deep breath to remedy the effects of her anxiety and light headedness. ‘I’m going to tell you something. But before I tell you promise me, you won’t think I’m crazy.’
Simon snickers, ‘You smashed a car window and broke into a police station. I don’t think you can make yourself look any crazier than you already have.’
‘I’m serious.’ Kate says slowly, ‘you have to promise me that you’ll listen to be opened-minded. I saw what happened and I’m still struggling to comprehend it.’ Simon looks down and begins to work on the lock, ‘Sure, try me.’
Kate takes a couple steps away from Simon and crosses her arms, ‘I was on a video call with Rachael and this…this thing with this long arm reached through her window and pulled her out. It couldn’t have been a person; it didn’t look like a person. I’m not quite sure what it looked like.’
The lock on the cuff springs open. Simon removes the cuff from his wrist and stretches his hand. ‘So, something with a long arm reached through her window and grabbed her. But yet you don’t know what it was? What did it look like?’
‘It had like, a white hand. But not flesh white; it was like chalky white and kind of bumpy.’ Kate says as she continues, ‘And it’s fingers, or what I guess you could call fingers, were pointy and I saw these three buttons on its sleeve and the sleeve was kinda muddy. This wasn’t a regular arm; I’m not sure what kind of arm it was.’
The strangeness of Kate’s story worries Simon. He knows she has been through a lot in the past couple of days and wonders if the scene she’s describing is true, or a hallucinatory result of stress.
‘You said you saw buttons right? What did the buttons look like?’ Simon asks. Kate puts her hand on her chest. She can feel her heart rattling under her hand. ‘They looked like buttons. What do you mean what did they look like?’
‘I’m trying to jog your memory,’ Simon replies, ‘when you start remembering the small things, the big picture might come back to you. That’s the only way we can explain to everyone what you saw and I c
an hopefully clear my name. Now Kate, try to remember. What did his buttons look like?’
Simon looks over Kate’s shoulder and sees a shadow moving in the cell. Simon’s face pales. He grabs Kate’s arm and pulls him close to him. Kate slightly resist, ‘What are you doing?’
The shadow swings around and puts its feet on the floor. It scratches the cold, cement floor with its unusually long toe nails. It struggles to arise from the tiny cot in the cell, its knees creaking and it stands. It slowly walks to the bars of the cell. The moonlight coming through the window behind him shines between its long, thinning grey hair.
Kate locks her arm with Simon’s as the figure comes closer. Simon stands protectively in front of Kate. ‘Don’t worry, that door is locked. He can’t get out.’ he says to her reassuringly.
The figure stands at the bars of the cell. He sticks both of his hands between the bars and clasps them together. He softens his rough expression, relaxing his taut eyebrows and loosening his stiff lips.
‘Gold.’ he says quietly, ‘the buttons were gold.’
Kate steps from behind Simon and begins to walk toward the cell. Simon thrust his arm out to stop her. ‘What are you doing?’
She turns around and looks at him, her eyes ablaze with astonishment, ‘The buttons were gold, he’s right’
Simon pulls his arm back and Kate walks closer to the cell, close enough to see the serious expression of the man’s face, but far enough out of reach of his battered hands.
‘How did you know that?’ she asks. The old man smiles, ‘It seems you’re interested in the ramblings of an insane person when they benefit you. It’s one of those funny things in life, when unexplained events take place and unexplained questions arise, unexplainable answers are sought and treasured.’
Simon storms to the cell. He bangs his fist against the bars rattling them, ‘Answer her question!’ he screams.
She pulls Simon away, ‘Calm down.’ She says in a soothing tone.
She turns to the old man, ‘Your name is Willis right? I remember that’s what the sheriff called you the first time I was here. I’m Kate, and this is Simon.’
Willis opens his palms, ‘It’s nice to meet the two of you. I’m sorry about my aggression the other day. But now, you can see why I used such extreme measures to get your attention.’
Kate takes Willis hand and gently presses her fingers into his palms, ‘It’s ok, you just scared me a bit. I know we got off on the wrong foot before but, we really need to know what you know.’
Willis looks over at Simon’s semi irate face. He smiles at Simon; Simon does not return the gesture. ‘You want to know what I know, but I’m sure you’re more interested in what I know, so you can end this torment going through the town.’
Willis leans in further, ‘But to get to the end, you have to start at the beginning, just like everything in life.’
‘What’s the beginning?’ Kate asks. Willis leans closer to the bars, ‘The beginning is a tragedy. And like all tragedies, it begins with someone well natured.’
********************
His name was Arthur Irving.
He was a mortician around this area sometime in the 1800’s. But he wasn’t just a mortician; some say he was the best. Some say he pioneered certain techniques that made corpse look at though it was still breathing.
Back in those days, a corpse could only last a few days before they completely started to rot away unto the dust it came from. Arthur could preserve a body for weeks, if not months. He would construct a skeleton entirely from wooden sticks dipped in vodka and replace the bones of the body.
He was very skilled in his craft and those who commissioned his expertise paid top dollar to have his artistic hands placed upon their deceased loved ones. Unfortunately, in a town as small as his, people did not die as often as he needed to put food on his table.
In order to provide for himself and his 9 year old daughter Celeste, he started traveling to nearby towns. He would leave her home by herself for two days at a time to find more work. Before he left, he would take what little money he had to buy her enough food for those two days and a roll of butcher paper and colored pencils so she could entertain herself by drawing pictures.
He would ride into these towns in his best attire, a black suit that he often colored with charcoal when it started to fade from the sun. Three gold buttons adorned each of his sleeves.
He knew that death is a trying time for a family so to make it easier for them in their time of mourning, he would tell them to leave the body outside of their local funeral home with a circle drawn on the top so he could differentiate his customers from the customers of the local mortician.
He would take them home, perform his duty and Celeste would scribble an “X” inside the circle to let Arthur know which ones were ready to be returned.
As you could imagine, the local morticians weren’t very happy about Arthur taking their business. So they rode into his town and conspired with a group of men at the pub to get rid of him.
They broke into his house, kidnapped Celeste and splashed goat’s blood over her bed and walls. Then when the morning came, the men gathered outside of his house bore false witness to the priest that Arthur had killed her. The priest then gave them permission to serve “justice”.
Arthur flew into a rage. He grabbed a few sharpened sticks of wood from his shop and stabbed the priest in the eye. The men tackled Arthur and dragged him to a nearby lake for an interrogation. They bound his wrist and ankles and tied the rope’s ends to the backs of two plowing horses. The horses stretched him. His bones tore from the joints and his legs and arms shredded from their sockets, but his skin never tore. As they cut his limp, extended body from the horses, one of the men laughed. He said he looked taller, he looked….Slender.
Arthur tried to get up, but his body was too broken. The men knew there was no way he could survive, so they decided to take “pity” on him and give him a quick death by hanging.
While the men prepared a noose, one of the morticians walked up and kneeled beside him. He took out a folded piece of butcher’s paper with a drawing of a stickman holding the hand of a stickgirl. Surrounding the two were brightly colored flowers and a radiantly glowing sun. The man bent down closer to where only Arthur and the other morticians could hear him.
“Don’t worry; we’ll take real good care of your daughter. Really…good…care.”
With the last of his strength, he raised his head off the ground. The group looked at him astonished. They could see him fighting through his agonozing pain. He turned his head and looked each one in the eye.
“You have taken the peace from my family, so YOUR families will know no peace. No one in your bloodline shall go to the grave without knowing vengeance from my hands. Do what you must with my body; I leave my breath in the wind. For you will NOT know if the gentle breeze behind you that sweetly hums in your ear…is the prelude to my revenge!”
The group was visibly terrified. They sat among each other trying to decipher his last words.
One of the men said “We’ll he can’t hang him. His body has to be destroyed.” Someone suggested that they burn the body. “But his ashes will be carried in the wind. I don’t think we should take that chance.”
One of the men walked over to his horse and returned with a bag of lye. He instructed some of the men to crush rocks and mix the dust with water from the lake. The men did as they were told and returned back with a mixture.
The man took the lye and poured it over Arthur’s face and hands. Arthur’s flesh began to melt from his face, exposing his skull and bones. The man then instructed they pour the stone and water mixture inside of the skull. They did as they were told and filled the skull. Then then man told them to pour some over the bones of his hands.
“Let’s see him touch our families now.” He said to the group of men.
They took him out to the middle of the lake and dumped him off the side of a boat. They watched as the murky waters enveloped his corp
se. They agreed on a code word to talk about any concerns they had with Arthur’s last words in the future. From now on, this situation would be known as the Birch situation, named after the Birch trees surrounding the lake. And Arthur would be known as the Slender Man. No one ever talked about it after that day…because none of them survived for more than three years after the murder.
The Slender Man Game of Myths Page 16