As I predicted, once the gifts have been given, the party begins to die out. Of course, we're some of the last ones to leave. In fact, Mom wants to stay and help clean up. Karen gave her a ride here, so we can't just leave her, which means the only way for us to go home any time soon is for Dad and me to help. I begin gathering cups, plates, and cans that were left lying around the place. Did no one but me notice the big trash can that was provided? I pile it all into the one trash can, getting as much into the overflowing bag as I can, before Dad gets the bright idea to hand me an empty trash bag to carry around. Smart me.
I feel a little tension release as I clean up. I realize that it is because the background static that was setting my teeth on edge is gone. I look around. Is that monster still here? No, I can't see him. He must have left, finally. I take a deep relaxed breath and continue my job. Dad hauls both trash bags over to the dumpsters, and then begins to work with Jamie on getting the tables, chairs, and tents put away. Mom's idea of helping is to stand at the front door chatting away with Karen while the three of us do the work. I guess since she came and helped earlier with the set-up, she doesn't feel the need to help now, which sounds fair assuming it wasn't just Lindsay, Jamie, and some of the other guests that set things up while she chatted with Karen. Where is Lindsay anyway, and why isn't she helping? She must be inside with Lionel.
I help Dad and Jamie by picking up plastic chairs and carrying it out to the storage shed where they're storing the other items. I keep an eye out for the fiend, making sure he's not about to ambush me or anything, but there’s no sign of him. When everything including the canvas and poles for the tent are piled in the garage, the yard looks strangely barren.
“I'm gonna get the car started. Go fetch your Mom,” orders Dad. Good he's ready to go too. I walk up to Mom, still chatting with Karen, and am about to speak when Lindsay approaches.
“Hey, didn't you want me to give Lionel a bath?” she asks.
“Yeah haven't you done that yet?” says Karen.
“No, you never sent him up,” answers Lindsay.
“Well then where is he?”
“Don't ask me. Last I checked he was with you.”
I realize what has happened before they do. I remember the relief I felt when he disappeared. I must not have been his target after all. He has taken Lionel.
12: The Discussion
“So he's been missing for less than an hour?” asks Deputy Yew.
“Yes,” answers Mom. Karen Willow is frantically searching the surrounding forest for her son, and Jamie is sitting against his house, head in his folded hands. He probably feels like it's his fault, because I sent him over to look for a possible kidnapper that he didn’t find, and now his son is missing. It's not his fault though. He walked right through the fiend without sensing him, so there is no way he could have fought him off. All we possibly could have done better was keep an eye on Lionel at all times, like we should have done. Of course that's probably what he was waiting for; an opportunity to strike when no one was looking. Here I was afraid he was here to take me, but he had his eyes on Lionel.
“Alyssa, can you give me a description of the man you saw?” asks Deputy Yew. Oh right, everyone else thinks a man might have taken Lionel.
“Yeah, I mean I didn't get a good look, and I tried to take pictures but they didn't come out, but he was... tall, skinny, and all in black. I didn’t see his face at all,” I say honestly, although tall; skinny; and black are all abstract words in this case.
“So it didn't look like Jason Larch or Mario Douglas?” he asks. I shake my head. This static entity is probably why Mario and Jason are missing. Yew nods his head to me and begins speaking on his radio. I catch a forlorn, almost apologetic gaze from Jamie and return it.
“It's not his fault,” I repeat to myself. If anyone is at fault, it's me. I should have kept an eye all on all three children knowing that thing was near, but I didn't because I was worried about myself. I moan inwardly-I wasn’t even keeping a close watch on Adam! At least he is okay, and if I ever see that fiend again, I'm handcuffing Adam to me.
“I just spoke with the sheriff. There aren't very many places he could have gone in such a short time period, so we are going to initiate a search. In the meantime, we need the Willows to give us a list of everyone who came to the party, that way we will have a good number of people to talk to. Maybe one of them got a better look at this guy. Alyssa, do you think you could give an accurate description to a sketch artist?” asks Deputy Yew, hints of stress coming from him.
“No I, I really didn’t see his face. I'm sorry,” I answer.
“Right, okay listen,” he says, turning to my Dad. “You need to take your kids and lock them up at home with an adult present at all times. We've had more than one child disappearing in the same day, so it's best you get your kids to safety,” he explains.
“You got it,” Dad says, and motions for us to follow him. I can see Lindsay standing in the doorway. She isn't crying, but there's a solemn frown on her face that shows that she is definitely worried about her brother, just like I'd be if Adam had been the one to disappear.
“Eight kids. This man's taken eight kids. When we find him he needs to be hanged,” says Mom from behind.
“Nine ma'am. If we don't find the Willow boy, he'll be the ninth,” corrects Yew. I bow my head, putting my arm around Adam as we walk toward the car. Nine kids-ten people missing, this is absurd! We get into the car and I give one last sympathetic look back to the distraught Willow family. Lionel was kidnapped on his birthday. The whole reason the Willows went through with this party is because they thought it would be a morale booster, but then the perp- the entity strikes. Is it a coincidence that he took Lionel today of all days or did he take him today on purpose just to add to everyone's suffering?
The drive home is silent, and I spend the whole ride looking out the windows to make sure that we aren’t still being watched. When we get home, Bubbe greets us at the door.
“I've got supper in the oven, do you want-” she starts, but then she stops when she sees our faces. =
“Oh Lord, what happened?” she asked, but one look from me and she knows exactly what happened. I can convey messages to Bubbe almost as well as I could- can for Shana. I won't give up hope that she's still alive.
She motions us inside. As I enter, the aroma of fresh cornbread hits me. I am normally amazed by how well Bubbe's cornbread turns out, but the bread reminds me of cake, and the cake reminds me of the disastrous party we just came from, and that causes my appetite to plummet. I head upstairs, unsure about what to do. I can get into my pajamas. I've already bathed and I really don't want to bore myself with homework. I don't think I have the focus for it anyway. Maybe I will do some web surfing.
The internet! Why didn't I think of it before? I can look up the things I’ve been seeing and experiencing and see if it's some phenomenon that has been dealt with before. I run upstairs with a new motivation guiding my step. I go to my room and flip open my lap top. I have many objects that are pretty old in my collection, but this laptop takes the cake. It's seven years old, and in this day and age, seven years means a lot for technology. We bought it refurbished from a pawn shop, but it’s running the latest version of Windows, and has upgraded sound and video cards to boot. The only things it's still lacking in are RAM and storage. It's only got a twenty gigabyte hard drive and half a gigabyte of RAM, so it's not good for anything but storing music and surfing the web.
The hibernation screen takes forever to load into the login screen, and when it does I just press enter. That causes another slow loading screen to play out, and it feels like minutes before my cluttered background piled with different files of no particular organization, ranging from music to funny pictures shows up.
Despite the clutter, I can spot the little Firefox logo perfectly and click on it. Here comes another dull wait. Once the browser finally shows more than a blank white loading screen, I immediately begin typing into the search bar. I star
t with
“Shadow static disappearing children,” and hit enter. I wait a little bit for it to load before it pulls up many different links. I was hoping for an immediate flashing link that would take me to a site that explained exactly what this thing is and how to stop it, but all that pops up are links to a whole bunch of irrelevant multimedia productions. I do some scrolling before deciding that I will need to be more specific. I try “Dark shadow figure that kidnaps children,” I hit enter, but then my screen starts fading. It looks like it's doing that whole 'Not responding' bull but then I realize it's getting hazier as if something is wrong with the screen.
I wait a few seconds and then try clicking. The cursor is moving but not opening anything that I click. Is it a computer virus? It could be, I haven't updated my antivirus in like a month. I hold the power button until the laptop turns off, and then I press the power button again for it to turn back on. I sigh, ready for the even longer loading screen that will now be accompanied by a system check. When the screen pulls up, it still has that haze, and then it gets even worse. Now the whiteness fades into blackness, taking all the pretty colors with it. I shake my laptop. No! Why would it crash now of all times? I slam my fist on the keyboard before getting up. I'll just have to us the downstairs computer.
I turn around and nearly faint with fright when I see a silhouette outside my window. I scream loudly and fall backward onto my bottom. It's him, and he’s contorting himself. No wait, maybe it's a tree? No, that’s impossible-there are no trees outside my window, and even then my almost opaque curtain wouldn't cast a silhouette. What I just saw was more like a shadow cast from the inside. I crawl backward, still on all fours when my parents rush into the room, Bubbe close behind. Dad looks around and assesses the situation before giving me an aggravated look. Well dude, would you rather a false alarm or me be kidnapped? I think to myself.
He looks at me for an explanation. I think of an overused lie.
“There was huge spider. It was like a tarantula except, evil looking,” I lie. My Dad purses his lips and exits the room.
“Are you alright?” Mom asks politely, but even she doesn't want to wait for a full answer. I give her a quick little nod before turning to face my knees. The entity is still here. It followed me to my house, and now he wants me. I hear the door close and look up in fright, but it's just Bubbe. She's closed the door with us inside.
“Hey,” I muster, not sure what this is about. She makes her way through the mess on my floor and sits on my vanity bench and looks at me with a serious look on her face.
“You don't scream bloody murder for a spider,” she says. I shrug a bit, not quite sure what to tell her.
“Don't play dumb with me. There's no need for that. I know what's going on,” she says.
“You... do?” I ask. “You're seeing things, aren't you?” she asks. I'm not sure whether or not I should trust that she and I are on the same page.
“You won't think I'm crazy?” I ask. She bows her head at me.
“Just because you aren't blind to what's going on doesn't mean you're crazy,” she says.
“So you've... seen him? The static monster thing I mean?” I ask.
“That's... one way of describing him,” she says.
“What causes it? What is it?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “He's something I hoped I'd never see again,” she answers.
“Again?”
“Back when I was little girl in Poland, during the invasion... you couldn't go an hour without seeing him,” she starts. “It's easy to just disappear unnoticed when everyone around you is disappearing anyway, don't you agree?” she continues.
“He took people during the Holocaust?” I ask.
“He took children,” she corrects.
“So, didn't people notice? Didn't the Gestapo think they ran away or something and punish the parents?”
“Sweetie, those were the same men that threw kids on the streets while shipping their parents off to camps. Those kids were left to die, and many of the ghettos became feeding grounds for the monster.”
“So did he follow you?”
She shakes her head. “When I finally got away from there, I never saw him, at least not until now. Not until the accident.”
“So he came and caused the accident?” I ask. That would make sense.
She shakes her head.
“I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the accident is what drew him here. If he was here before, children would have been missing a lot sooner.”
“Why would the accident draw the fiend here though?”
“I only know what my old Rabbi told us about him when kids began disappearing in my neighborhood. We had taken to gathering together as much as we were allowed, to gain safety in numbers. I don't know much about him, but I know that he thrives on human misery. The Rabbi said that there were Jewish tales of the creature; that it loosely mimicked the form of a man, and always appeared in times of suffering-which you know our people have had our share of. Maybe it was the death of so many children at once, or the despair the survivors felt and the way their families worried about their safety that drew him here.”
“What about Mario? He's an adult. Do you think he-”
“I think the fiend has something to do with the driver's disappearance yes. I've never- seen him take an adult, but with the amount of guilt someone like Mario would suffer when he recovered, I think the monster wouldn’t have been able to resist. It always claims the physically and emotionally weak, and those who have been worn down by some prolonged strong negative emotion.”
I look at the ground. He takes the weakest. Jason was strong, but he was so focused on his anger and making everyone around him pay, that the anger had pretty much become his entire existence. Lionel wasn't involved with the crash, but he only turned five today, and he’d been ill, so he'd be weak as well. Shana was always paranoid, and felt doomed for the worst as soon as she heard about the accident. Leanne was consumed with jealousy and hatred for me just because Adam survived. Plus the others I don't know about. They were all vulnerable in some way. They could be led or taken-
“So what does he do when he's chosen someone? I've seen something watching us, but so do all the people it has taken. Except from what I know they have seen it in the form of their deceased siblings.”
“That's what I mean by weakened. If it can get you to come to it by using your own pain against you, it will. Once it’s chosen someone, it marks them for its own. I don’t understand how, but according to what the Rabbi said and what I observed many times in Poland, and what is now happening here, I think he somehow attaches himself to those he wants and functions as a parasite. Those he’s marked to take become ill, they begin to weaken physically and… they always have nose bleeds. He uses their fear to keep them from sleeping and wear them down more, keeping a constant stream of negative emotion. That’s why he appears to certain people.”
I think about that. The static and vibration in my bones I feel when he’s near…maybe that’s his energy interfering with mine-like the way some types of electronics interfere with a television or radio and cause static. I wonder if once he has locked onto you as his next target, the static becomes constant. The thought of that fills me with an even bigger sense of dread.
“But he’s everywhere. He was just outside my window. He’s in my dreams, He's-
“The Rabbi said he’s not from this world, but from… ha’olam tsil, a shadow world, and that his interaction with our world is limited. To think of it in modern terms that you can understand, imagine its world as being another dimension, parallel to ours. Pockets of human misery creates thin areas in the veil between the two dimensions, allowing him to leak through… just as a shadow at first, insubstantial. It’s very difficult for him to pass through in corporeal form.
“As he appears in his shadow form and generates fear, getting people to focus their thoughts on him, his connection with this world becomes stronger, and he’s able to draw people through the vei
l into the shadow world. Once he’s drawn a child through, he establishes a solid physical totem somewhere that allows him easy passage from his own world to his newfound hunting ground. The totem is a physical representation of him. The more children he takes, the stronger his foothold in that area. I don’t know if the totem is always the same, but in Poland, that totem was a tall, strange tree that appeared overnight.”
“The tree!” I shout. Bubbe looks at me quizzically. “There's a dark tree in the middle of the woods on that route I jog. I never saw it until people started going missing. Would that be it?” I ask.
Bubbe leans back. “How far away is it?”
“It's almost two miles into the woods,” I say. “And Shana said that Denise needed her help in the woods, and Adam, when we found him the other day it's like he was heading right for it. It's-”
A look of horror appears on her face.
“I can't have this. Not this close to my grandchildren,” she says to herself.
“Well, how do we fight him?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“You don't. You run from him.”
“Won't he follow us?”
“I think he won't stray too far from his tree till he’s ready to set up another one. That's why none of the kids from the neighboring cities are gone, but if he’s got this many children, and he’s this close to us…You children need to stay with your aunt and uncle.” Our Aunt Kendra and Uncle Dan live in Michigan though.
“I'm gonna go speak with your parents,” she says, getting up.
“Bubbe wait!” She stops.
“How come you can see him, and Jamie Willow walked right through him without noticing?” I ask.
“He appears to people who've suffered, and those who are suffering,” she says quietly.
The Slender Man Page 11