Slender Man

My own twist to the Slender Man craze.

            “You b*****d!” a man yelled, his feet thudding across the ground as he sprinted, freshly cut grass crunching under his feet.  Green trees flew by in a flash, and the man yelled again, frantic and angry, “You b*****d!  Give her back, you b*****d!”  Everything became unclear and a terrible sound filled the air, static, like a television getting bad reception.  Terribly garbled, “You-u-u-u bastar-ar-ard…”

            The young man jerked awake as a cold smooth hand touched his bare shoulder.  It took him a moment to realize he was in his own bedroom, “You okay, babe?  You were talking in your sleep again.”  His girlfriend’s voice was a drowsy whisper as she rubbed his shoulder.

            “Yeah,” he replied hoarsely, clearing his throat as he rolled over to face her.  He looked into her worried blue eyes and smiled, “I’m okay.  Just a bad dream.”

            “You wanna talk about it?”

            “Nah,” he shook his head and smiled again, but her expression grew graver, “You worry about me too much,” he brushed a strand of her long blonde hair out of her face, “God you’re beautiful.”

            A smile spread across her face and she grabbed the hair at the front of his head playfully, “What do you want from me, Shawn Rider?”

            “Nothing.  I mean it,” Shawn smiled wider.

            “I know,” she shook his head then let go of his hair and kissed him.  She threw back the covers and threw her legs over the side of the bed, standing.

            Shawn rolled over on his back, staring up at the ceiling, sighing, “I am the luckiest man alive.”

            “Uh-huh, you better believe it,” she was bent over, pulling on her slippers.

            “What time is it, Rachel?” he asked, stretching.

            She threw back her hair, standing, “Six-thirty.”

            He groaned, running his hands through his short brown hair, “I better get up.  Work comes too early,” he slapped his hands down on the bed, exhaling heavily.

            He sat up slowly, trying to rub a cramp out of his neck.  He felt the bedsprings creak and felt Rachel’s hands on his neck and shoulders, smooth and cool.  He closed his eyes as several chills traveled down his spine and he felt a warm yearning sensation growing in his crotch.

            “Feel better?” she asked, pressing gently with her thumbs.

            “Mm-hm,” he grunted.

            “Good,” she leaned forward, kissing his jaw, then getting up and heading into the kitchen.

Shawn stretched his shoulders one last time before standing and walking into the bathroom.  He looked at himself in the mirror, deciding whether or not shaving was really necessary this morning.  Shawn was a towering man at roughly six feet five inches and well built; not ripped, but toned.  He had a slender face shadowed with light stubble and understated green eyes; the nose was round, but defined.

            He rubbed his chin one last time before deciding to just shower, eat, and hit the road.  He could already hear the bacon Rachel was cooking sizzling in the skillet.  He dropped his boxers to his ankles then stepped out of them, climbing into the shower.  He flinched as cold water struck his body, but soon the temperature evened out and he began to lather his hair.  As he massaged shampoo into his hair, his mind went back to his nightmare.  It had been the same, every night for the past few weeks, with minor changes.  Always the man yelling; always the same words.  He knew the man was his father, he recognized his voice.  Then there was the little girl, the one he knew as his sister from vague memories and pictures his mother had shown him.  And the other man… he could never remember his face when he woke up, but there was occasionally another man present in the dream.

            He rinsed his hair and shut off the water.  He pulled on his slacks and button down shirt, laying his jacket out on the bed, all of which had had to be custom made due to his great height.  He walked into the kitchen to Rachel grabbing mugs out of the cabinet, the freshly cooked bacon on a serving platter.

            He leaned against the door frame, shoving his hands into his pockets, “You need any help?”

            “Don’t be silly, Shawn Rider, we both know where you belong and it is not in the kitchen.”

            He chuckled and she smiled, “I’ll be in the living room then.”  He sat down on the sofa, listening to Rachel bustle around the kitchen.  He turned to the bookshelf beside the sofa, pulling his Senior high school year book from one of the shelves.  He opened it to where to the page marked by a yellowed newspaper article.  He removed the article, reading the headline: ‘Still No Suspects In Father/Daughter Disappearance.’  He then continued to read, ‘Thomas Rider, age 42, and his three-year-old daughter Tabitha Rider both disappeared from their home late last week on Thursday, September 23^rd.  The police are still scratching their heads as to why the Riders’ other child, five-year-old Shawn Rider, did not disappear along with his father and sister.  Authorities say his mother came home to find him unsupervised in the backyard and her husband and daughter gone.  Police have searched the woods that back the Riders’ neighborhood, but still have no leads to where they would have gone.  If you have any information, please call-”

            He saw Rachel emerge from the kitchen and closed the article back in the book, returning it to the shelf.  She set two mugs of coffee and the bacon platter on the coffee table in front of the sofa.  They began eating in silence.

            “So what’re your plans for today?” Shawn asked, sipping his coffee.

            “Nothing much, was just gonna do some cleaning around the house before I have to go to work at four, then back here with you for the evening.  What about you, just a normal day at the office?”

            “Yeah, probably,” he smirked, “My boss has been riding my a*s since that server crashed last week.”

            “Ah well, what can you do?  You’re the best guy there and your boss knows it,” she leaned her head against his shoulder, hugging him.

            “Yeah, only twenty-five and top computer programmer isn’t doing too bad.”

            “Nope,” she agreed, snuggling against his neck, “Looks like I’ll be marrying a nerd.”

            He smiled down at her, “A handsome nerd.”

            “Sure Bill Gates, keep telling yourself that.”

            He chuckled softly, leaning his head against hers.  He glanced at his watch then stood up abruptly, “Oh d****t, I’m gonna be late,” he clenched his hands into fists, rushing into the bedroom to grab his jacket and tie, “Where did the time go?”  He threw on his jacket, attempted to tie his tie twice, then gave up, returning to the living room, his briefcase in hand, “Babe, I can’t figure this thing out.  Help me?”  She smiled a sideways smile and walked over to him shaking her head and tied it perfectly on the first try, “Thanks babe,” he headed for the door.

            “Where would you be without me?” she had her arms crossed, shaking her head.

            He turned, “Nowhere,” and kissed her on the mouth, running out the door.  He turned back one more time, yelling, “I love you, Rachel Talbot!”

            She was playing with the silver heart necklace around her neck as he pulled his black Charger out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.

 

            A tall man emerged from the trees, approaching the two playing children.  He walked past Shawn to the small blonde girl sitting in the grass behind him with her dolly and stuffed tiger, having a make belief picnic with the off-brand Tupperware.  The man came back into the boy’s line of vision, Tab all dressed in pink holding his hand.  The man is wearing a suit… he says, “Tab and I are going to go play in the park, okay Shawny.  You stay here.”  He means the state park through the forest behind their house that nobody goes to anymore.  Shawn wants to tell the man that nobody else plays there but he is already to the tree line, Tab running excitedly by his side.  “You b*****d!”

            His father’s voice was so loud that Shawn jolted awake.  The first thing his eyes focused on was the calendar on his desk.  It read ‘September 21^st.’

            “Almost twenty years,” Shawn shook his head, wiping the drool from his mouth.  His mind returned to his dream, “Why can I never remember that man’s face… until a few weeks ago I didn’t even remember a man.”  He checked his watch; a quarter ‘til one.  If he could convince his boss to let him take the rest of the day off, he would have time to drive out to his mom’s, take a look around, see if anything would jog his memory.

 

            Shawn pulled up to the curb and climbed out of the car, stretching his legs after the forty-five minute drive.  The house looked old; it had always looked old.  A two story farmhouse with faded white siding and big picture windows framed by fake shutters.  He walked around the house to the backyard, his hands buried in his pockets, looking around.  Nothing had changed.  The lawn was green and mowed; the water hose rolled up on the back stoop next to his mother’s gardening tools and faded turquoise goulashes.  The yard ended abruptly at the tree line to the woods that surrounded what had once been a state park, now abandoned and forgotten.

He turned around, looking at the house.  It brought back memories alright: his mother crying as the cops asked her questions.  His first wet dream.  Playing hide and seek with Mikey and Jordan.  The smell of fresh apple pie.  But no recollection of the man’s face.

“Maybe I’m making it up,” he thought, “Maybe I just saw a calendar and what happened is just getting twisted in my mind because of the pressure at work…”  A piercing sound made him put his hands to his ears, like feedback from a microphone that’s turned up far too loud.  But the broadcast wasn’t words, just static.  He turned back to the trees and spotted a tall man wearing a suit and cried out in surprise, falling over backwards.  He sat up quickly, searching the trees, but there was no one there.  He could’ve sworn there hadn’t been a face, just whiteness, “Just your mind playing tricks on you, Shawn, seeing what you wanna see, of course there was no face, you can’t remember it.”

He stood, brushing off his pants and surveying the trees one last time out of paranoia before turning and heading back to his car.  He climbed in behind the wheel and sat a moment.  If some man really had taken Tab, why hadn’t he taken Shawn too?  Wouldn’t that have made sense… to take both children?  Why only one?  As little sense as it made, his father’s yelling was far too vivid in his mind to be a false memory.  He had been yelling at someone.

 

            Shawn sat in his favorite leather chair, sipping a beer.  It was almost seven o’clock, Rachel wouldn’t be home for at least another hour and he couldn’t think of what to do to kill the time.  He leaned his head back and began to slowly drift off to sleep when the phone rang.  He sat a moment, irritated that his nap had just been sabotaged, then got up to answer the phone.  The screen displayed no number and read ‘Unknown Caller.’

            Shawn rolled his eyes before answering, “Look, if you’re selling anything, I’m not interested-”

            “Shawny?” the voice had a slight European accent and struck Shawn as disturbingly familiar.

            “No one has called me that in years… who the hell is this?”

            “You want to know who took your sister and daddy?” the voice asked, with the same emotionless tone.

            “What?”

            “I saw you.  At the house today.”

            Shawn’s whole body went numb, “You… you did?”  He remembered seeing the vanishing man in the trees.

            “The same man that took your sister and daddy, he took your uncle too.”

            Shawn frowned, confused, “You got the wrong guy mister, my mom only has sisters and my dad was an only child.”

            “Or at least that’s what he told you,” the voice was so calm, so vacant, it was unsettling.

            Shawn swallowed, “Look, quit screwing around.  Who is this?”

            There was silence on the other end for a moment then the voice spoke again, “I took your uncle, Jackson Rider.  And I took your sister and your daddy too.”

            Feeling was coming back to Shawn’s body and he was tense all over.  He clenched his jaw, “Why… why didn’t you take me too?”

            “Why don’t you ask your father about that,” he heard a click on the other end and the call disconnected.  He sat for a moment with the phone still to his ear, then hung it up and walked into the kitchen to find something a little stronger to drink than beer.

 

            “What’s the matter Shawn, you barely ate and you’ve said a total of five words to me since I’ve been home,” Rachel sat down next to Shawn on the edge of the bed, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it gently.

            He stared at the floor then slowly looked up at her, tears glistening in his eyes, “I fell asleep at work… and I had the dream again.”

            She looked into his eyes, rubbing his cheek with her free hand, “What is that dream about, Shawn?  It’s been bothering you for weeks, I wake up hearing you talking in your sleep and you don’t say good things.”

            He looked away for a moment then his gaze returned to hers, “What kind of things do I say?”

            She shrugged, slowly shaking her head, “I can’t make most of it out, you always seem so distressed… I can sometimes hear what sounds like ‘give her back’ and one thing you say clearly every night is ‘you b*****d, you b*****d’ over and over again.”

            He released her hand, putting both of his hands on her thin waist, “I have you… and that’s what matters.  What matters is what’s real,” he nodded, looking into her eyes.

            “But I’m worried about you, Shawn,” she grabbed his hair, something she had done since they’d met at the college; he liked the way her fingers felt on his scalp, “That stress I hear in your voice at night is real.”

            “It’s just a dream Rachel… just a bad bad dream.”

 

Shawn got out of the car and walked up to the white house, inserting his key into the lock and turning it.  He walked in, looking around.  His mother had truly changed nothing in the house since he had left for college.  When was the last time he’d visited?  Two, three Christmases ago?  He started up the stairs to the attic where his mom had decided to store all of Tab and his father’s things when she was sure they were not coming back.  His father had kept a journal and he was sure it up there in one of the boxes.  If there was any truth to what the mysterious caller had said, the answer would likely be in there.

Everything in the attic was covered in a layer of the dust, the only light what sunlight leaked in the small rectangle of a window at the back of the house.  Shawn walked over to an old television box by the window with ‘Thomas’ written across it in black marker.  He opened it, sneezing as a cloud of dust puffed up in his face.  He waved his hand to clear the air and began going through the box.  There were old shirts and pairs of cargo pants, an old pair of cowboy boots, one leather glove without a match, an antique silver pocket watch.  After moving a photo album labeled ‘1975-1980,’ he found a miniature spiral notebook.  He opened the front cover and the first page read ‘This Journal Belongs to’ and written on the line below in childish handwriting was ‘Thomas Rider.’  He began to put the album back in the box when a leather bound book caught his eye.  It appeared to be older than even the photo album.  He pulled it out and blew off the dust.  He opened the first page and was immediately greeted by the smell of musty paper.  Scrawled on the first page was ‘this is the property of Jackson Lewis Rider.’

Shawn felt a knot forming in his gut.  How had that man on the phone known about his uncle?  There was only one explanation.  He had not been lying about being their abductor.  As he turned to grab the photo album, his eyes caught something out of place through the window.  A tall figure stood just inside the cover of the trees, clad in a suit, his face a blur from this height and slight warp of the window, but it was definitely the man from yesterday.  He dropped the album into the box and quickly threw the clothes back into it, running down the stairs.  He wanted to catch the son of a b***h this time.  Halfway down the stairs, he dropped the books, gripping the banister, the sound of static ringing in his ears and his head began to ache.  As it began to die down he grabbed the books and continued down the stairs.  He ran out the back door, letting it slam behind him.  He looked along the trees.  The man was gone.  He had seen Shawn no doubt and run away.  He was breathing heavily; scared, angry, and confused.  He noticed something stuck to a tree at the edge of the yard.  He walked towards it and as he drew nearer he saw it was a yellowed piece of paper.  Three words were written largely across the page ‘He’s Always Watching’ and a large stick figure was drawn next to the words with a large round head.  Shawn looked around one last time before taking the piece of paper and heading back to his car.

 

            Shawn leaned over the coffee table, the two books laid out in front of him.  Rachel had gone to bed hours ago, but Shawn had decided to stay up to read the journals.  The problem was he couldn’t decide which to read first.  On one hand, the man on the phone had told him his father knew why he hadn’t taken him.  On the other, he wondered if his uncle’s journal held the answers to why he had been kept a secret from him.  After a moment, he grabbed the spiral notebook.  It was the reason he had gone back to the house, so he would read it first.  He opened to the first entry, written in poor handwriting.

            “July 14^th, 1987

Today, my son, Shawn Wilson Rider was born.  I guess I will start keeping a journal now to keep track of stuff like when he learns to talk and such, stuff I’ll want to remember when he’s all grown up.  My first job as a father is to protect him… and I swear I will do my best.  He’s a scrawny little fella.  I think I’ll quit writing for now, gonna go hold him for the first time.”  Shawn turned to the next entry,

            “August 30^th, 1987

I’ve been neglecting this poor book… Shawn is over a month old and growing out brown hair just like his daddy… he has his momma’s green eyes.  They may not be as stunning as some other little boys’, but all the same they are beautiful.  I just hope he grows up to look more like his momma than me.”

            “September 8^th, 1987

Thank God it lasted all those years.  Lisa isn’t home, so this is the perfect time.  I promised to protect my son, and I pray that I am doing the right thing.  I will talk to Lisa, convince her one kid is enough due to the money and all.  Make her see my way without scaring her too bad… hopefully he never comes here… I want to say, I am sorry Jackson, there was no way to prove it… to anyone.  Everyone thought I was saying it outta grief and they almost took it from me.  I convinced them to let me keep it, as a keepsake, you know.  I wish someone were here to tell me I am doing the right thing.”  Shawn frowned down at the page, trying to figure out what his father was talking about.  ‘One kid is enough?’  Then where had Tab come from?

            “January 2^nd, 1988

Over three months and he seems to be doing fine… I think I made the right decision, thank Jesus.  I hope I never have to put it to the test…”

            “August 3^rd, 1988

Took Shawn to his first carnival.  He really seemed to enjoy it and I won him a big stuffed lion.”

            “September 16^th, 1988

The condom must’ve broke… Lisa is pregnant.  Not that I’m not glad to become a daddy again, that’s not it.  There’s none left… as I said before, I hope I never have to put it to the test, especially now.”

            “June 9^th, 1989

Tabitha Leslie Rider was born today… she is a beautiful baby just like her brother was.  He hasn’t gotten to see her yet, I wonder what he will think.”

            “September 20^th, 1989

Shawn has really taken to her… he has started calling her Tab, like the soda.  It fits, since we are always dressing her in pink, like the soda label.”  Shawn smiled in recognition.

            “August 13^th, 1992

Lost this damn thing… so much for keeping track of their firsts.  Sometimes I think I’m a lousy dad, but then again, I’m never gonna let them read this anyway.  Shawn is five now, Tabitha three.  She’s got a beautiful head of curly blonde hair and her momma’s eyes, just like Shawn.  They still get along pretty well, even if Shawn has quit having tea parties with her.”

            “September 23^rd, 1992,” Shawn stopped reading for a moment.  This was the day Tab and his father had disappeared, “Kids are playing out back.  This house is great for kids, we knew it when we bought it.  Great big backyard, perfect for playtime.  Just gonna look out the window and check on them.”

            And that was all there was.  Shawn sat in silence a moment, rereading the last line over and over again.  Then he flipped back a few pages, he reread, “Thank God it lasted all those years.  Lisa isn’t home, so this is the perfect time.  I promised to protect my son, and I pray that I am doing the right thing.  I will talk to Lisa, convince her one kid is enough due to the money and all.  Make her see my way without scaring her too bad… hopefully he never comes here… I want to say, I am sorry Jackson, there was no way to prove it… to anyone.  Everyone thought I was saying it outta grief and they almost took it from me.  I convinced them to let me keep it, as a keepsake, you know.  I wish someone were here to tell me I am doing the right thing.”  He traced a few of the lines with his finger, reading them slowly, “Thank God it lasted all those years… I promised to protect my son, and I pray that I am doing the right thing… hopefully he never comes here… I convinced them to let me keep it, as a keepsake you know.”  What had he done?  What had he done that he wanted to keep from his wife?

            “None of this makes any sense,” he whispered to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose and squinting his eyes closed.  He sat back up, staring at the wall.  His eyes fell on the leather bound book lying on the table.  He slowly picked it up and opened it, the smell burning his nostrils.  He began to read,

            “i learned there jus some things you cant tell people. like Ally Saint-whats-her-name. but i cant keep it all up in my head, so i taken the notion to rite it down. not like im a good riter er nothin, never did do well with gramar in scool, but you no… always put my hed to more practal things, like taken care of stuff here on the farm. growin crops dont require bein a smarty last time i checkd.

            some guy going around the feelds scarin the cattle and such. people so indecent these days, jus walken up on peoples property with no bizness but scarin the animals. woodint surprise me if it was some fella livin out in the woods tryin to steal one the suns a b*****s, woodint be the first time. jus gunna have to check the feelds mor at night.

            i don’t think it was some fella livin in the trees… nosir, it was a jennelmen, all dressed nice and everything. now i is 16 years old and i don’t scare easy but the jennelmen didnt have no face… and when i looked at him, i herd a weerd noise in my hed. kinda funny… cant reelly describe it.

            so like I sed befor, i aint no speller and i aint no reel reeder neether, but i desided to go into town and see if there was a buk on jennelmen like the one i seen. well it took me a wile, but i found a buk in the back of the shop from a far way plase, called Germany i think… but they had a story about a jennelmen in a suit with no face. i dont reelly wanna write this down but i cant tell no one neether, theyd think i was crazy. after all it was jus a story buk, but it sound jus like what i seen. this jennelmen is a tall fella, with long arms, wearin a nice suit. he aint got no face, jus white. but the scary part is if you seen him, you go away… forever. he takes away the children… i aint really a children, but i aint no grownup neether. but Tommy, hes a children, what if he seen it like me but didnt tell nobody… i got to find out. i dont want him to take Tommy away forever… i wanna be able to teech him to be big and strong like me and pa. he works hard on the farm, but hes also smarter than me. i want him to harvest enuff crops to have enuff money for ma and pa to keep him in scool so he can grow up to be a docter or something

            Tommy aint seen no jennelmen… i didnt tell him about the no face jus asked him if he seen a prowler and he sed no. i dont plan on him seeing him neether. seeing as im no grownup, im sure the jennelman will take me away forever soon and i wont be able to watch Tommy grow up big and strong, but pa will… i jus gotta keep Tommy away from him. somethin in my gut tells me he wants to take Tommy away too… but i wont let him. nosir.

            the horses are going crazy… i telled Tommy to stay in bed, i will take care of it. im writing this in case anyone finds it and reeds it. the jennelmens name is Slender Man… at leest i think i spelled that rite… and he is gunna take Tommy if i dont go down there and let him take me away. if i let him take me away he wont come around here no more… and i got to protect my brother, like i said, he smarter than me, maybe one day he will be something. i dont think Slender Man is human… so Tommy, if you find this, dont clean my knife. keep it and prove im rite. i no im not rite very often but i no i am this time.”

            There was a page missing, then the handwriting changed, “I know it ain’t right to go reading other people’s things… but after you disappeared, I guess it don’t matter no more.  I found the knife.  Did you cut him before he took you away, Jackson?  He don’t bleed, does he?  I tried to tell Pa, but he wouldn’t hear it, said you probably just runned away.  But I know better.”

            Shawn rubbed the rough edge where the page before had been ripped out and then lifted the page he had found stuck to the tree and placed it in the book.  The edges lined up; the paper was the same.  “He’s Always Watching,” he read, “What the hell happened to them… this can’t be real.”  He closed the books and put them on top of the bookshelf before joining Rachel in bed.

 

            “Tab and I are going to go play in the park, okay Shawny.”  “You b*****d!  You b*****d!  Give her back, you b*****d!”  Loud static… a man.  Standing in the trees.  His face obscured by the distance and a slight warping of the window.  His own voice, echoing in his mind, “What matters is what’s real.”  The static is so loud he swears his head is going to explode.  But his arms were long, he was a tall man and he didn’t even have to stoop to hold Tab’s hand.  “You b*****d!”  “Wake up, sleepy head.”  Rachel’s voice.

            Shawn opened his eyes, quickly closing them.  The room was so bright and he had an awful headache.

            “I told you to come to bed with me, but you said you had work to do.  How late were you up, two?  Three?”

            “Four,” he replied hoarsely, wiping his eyes.

            She smiled, “I remember that night, back in college.  You stayed out too late partying the night before the art history exam.  You stumbled into class so hung over that you knocked over the professor’s replica of King Tut’s death mask.  You didn’t know what to do, you just covered your ears as it shattered on the floor and dropped your books,” she laughed, shaking her head, “That was an omen that staying up late drinking was a bad idea.”

            “No, I don’t think so,” he smiled up at her.

            “Why do you say that?”

            “If I hadn’t decimated Carl’s statue, you never would’ve noticed me.”

            She stared at him a moment, then burst out laughing, her knees growing weak as she fell to the floor, “I’m sorry,” she struggled to say, tears now rolling down her cheeks, “But you look so damn serious.  You really think I only noticed you because you broke that dumb statue?”

            “Well you never so much as looked me before then,” Shawn stated, sounding hurt.

            “Sure I did,” her tone grew serious, “When you weren’t looking at me.”

            “When was that?” Shawn climbed down beside her on the floor.

            “When your eyes were glued to a computer screen,” she sighed heavily, “You weren’t like the other boys, because it wasn’t porn that had you so engrossed, it was coding.”

            “A computer was the reason you grabbed my hair for the first time like you always do,” he smiled, taking her hand and examining her fingers.

            “Well if you would’ve looked at me when I was talking to you, it wouldn’t have been a problem.”

            “But there wasn’t a problem,” he leaned in close to her, “I like how your fingers feel in my hair.”

            “Oh yeah?” his lips met hers, kissing her passionately.

            Her lips were soft and moist, not wet, they had always been soft.  He could hear his voice in his mind, “What matters is what’s real.”  Carl’s statue had been real; him sitting on the floor kissing Rachel now was real.  The Slender Man was just a story in a book.  And even if he was real, Jackson had said he only took children, so it didn’t account for his father’s disappearance.

            Rachel pulled away, breathing heavily, “Why don’t you shave, you caveman, my face is itchy now.”

            “I do need to get ready, don’t I?” he said disappointedly as he was brought back to reality and he remembered he had to be at work in an hour.  He stood and she followed his motion.  She started for the kitchen, “Hey,” she stopped, “Don’t trouble yourself over breakfast today.  Just rest, I’ll grab something on my way to the office.  You… just rest.”

            “Me rest?” she laughed, crossing her arms, smiling at him, “What about you?”  He couldn’t help but stare at her, that was what he had fallen in love with first, her smile.  And then he had gotten to know her and her smile had become even more beautiful.

            “Yeah, I’m a mess.  I know,” he walked into the bathroom and lathered his face in shaving cream before turning on his electric razor.  After a shower, he dressed, kissed Rachel goodbye, and left.  He grabbed a doughnut at a gas station on the way along with a coffee to keep him going.

            He sat down behind his desk, typing his username and password into the computer.  He loosened his tie a little, he always felt like it was strangling him.  His phone rang and he answered it, “Shawn Rider speaking.”

            “Shawny,” the monotone voice sent a chill down his spine, “A unique nickname, some variation of Johnny.”

            “How did you get this number?” he was gripping the armrest of his chair so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

            “I don’t think that is of consequence.  So, you know who I am now.”

            “I know who my uncle thought you were, if that’s what you mean.”

            “But I thought you said you didn’t have an uncle.”

            Shawn clenched his jaw, despite the lack of inflection in his voice, he could sense the man on the other end was mocking him, “Okay, so let’s say you are this… Slender Man.  Why didn’t you take me if you took my sister?  I was a child, my uncle said you take children.”

            “Didn’t you read your father’s book?  He made sure I couldn’t take you, just like Jackson stopped me from taking him.  I took care of my beef with your father, however.”

            “So what?  You killed him?  That it?”

            “That’s one way of putting it.”

            “You don’t take grownups.  The story book said so.”

            “Now that’s where you’re wrong.  The book didn’t say I couldn’t take grownups.  It merely said that I take children.”

            “Okay… you couldn’t take me, then why are you bothering to call me twenty years after you took my dad and sister?”

            “Just like your daddy, I got business with you.  I can’t take you, but I can think of someone I could take,” Shawn gripped the receiver tightly, all the feeling gone from his hands, “Someone we both know.”

            “No…” Shawn felt a knot forming in his stomach as he realized what the man was saying, “No not her.”

            “I think so, Shawny.”

            “I won’t let you,” his temples were throbbing, he was fighting back angry tears, “I won’t let you, you b*****d.”

            “We’ll see.”  The man hung up.  Shawn sat there, unable to move, the receiver still clutched in his hand.  He finally released the armrest, his fingers stiff and hung up the phone.  He was staring off into space when his boss came into his office.

            “Shawn, I need you to- say, you don’t look too good,” he took one step back from Shawn, “You need to take today off?  Go home, rest?”

            Shawn seemed dazed for a moment then looked up at him, nodding slowly, “I think that’d be good… yeah.”

            “Okay, well you feel better tomorrow, you hear?”

            “Yeah,” he rested his hand on his desk for support as he stood, his legs shaking unsteadily.

            As he drove home, he fumbled in his pocket for his wallet and flipped it open, looking at the picture of Rachel inside.  He tried to regulate his breathing, “I won’t let him take her… no, I won’t let him.”

            “Hey, you’re home early,” Rachel looked up from the magazine she was reading as Shawn walked through the front door.

            He took off his jacket and threw it over the back of his leather chair and loosened his tie, undoing his collar button.  He was drenched in sweat, “We need to talk.”

            “What, Shawn?  What’s the matter?” she frowned as he sat beside her on the sofa.

            He put his hands together as if praying, took a deep breath, then began to speak, staring down at his shoes, “When I was a little boy, my little sister and my father disappeared from our home.  They say I was there, but I never remembered anything.  Me and Tab were playing in the backyard, which bordered the woods and state park, though no one really went there anymore; I was five, she was three.  Mom was at a job interview and Dad was inside… Mom said she came home and I was sitting in the backyard, staring out into the trees.  When she asked me where my father and sister were, I… I couldn’t tell her anything… I just couldn’t remember… they never found them,” he looked up at her and she saw his eyes were rimmed with red, “But I’ve been having those dreams lately.  I think… I think they are memories that I blocked out.  I see Tab holding hands with a tall man in a suit.  And he tells me that they are going to go to the park… he knows my name…” tears began rolling down his cheeks, “he says ‘Tab and I are going to go play in the park, okay Shawny.  You stay here.’  I could never remember his face… I can hear my dad yelling ‘You b*****d!  You b*****d!’ and he runs off into the trees, ‘Give her back, you b*****d!’  But I went back to the house the other day… and I saw him… and I know why I could never remember his face… I can’t remember his face, because he doesn’t have one.”

            “Wait, slow down.  What do you mean he doesn’t have one?”

            “I mean it’s just… blank.”  His eyes met hers, “Look, I’m not saying you have to believe me… I thought it wasn’t real.  But now I’m not so sure… I think he’s something else, not a man.  And,” he winced, turning away from her, trying not to cry, “And he said he’s gonna take you.  When he takes people, they never come back, not even dead,” he looked back up at her, “This is gonna stop, I’m gonna make it stop.  I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” he shook his head, stoking her cheek, “I love you.  I’m not gonna let him.”

            He stood, grabbing his car keys off the coffee table and heading for the door, “Shawn, wait, I don’t under-” but he was gone.

 

            Night was falling as Shawn made his way along the house to the backyard and the forest came into view.  He started into the trees, displacing branches with his hands, the first leaves of Fall crunching under his shoes.  As it grew darker, a decrepit building came into view.  The old state park’s public restrooms, he had been here once with Mikey and Jordan when they played a treasure hunting game.  He put his hand to his ear as static erupted from inside his mind.  He looked up to see a tall man in dark clothes disappear into the restroom.  He lowered his hand and continued to the restroom.  It was dark inside, the only light that from the sunset that leaked in through the skylight.  But there he stood, tall in a dark suit with a burgundy tie, his hands joined neatly in front of him, stark white, like his face.  But it was true, he had no face, just a white surface with ridges where his features should be and a bald head.

            “So you came here to try to stop me?” he spoke and it chilled Shawn to the bone to hear his voice, but see no mouth moving to accompany it.

            “That’s the idea,” the man’s arms extended down to his knees.

            “Did you know you were supposed to be a runt, Shawny?”

            “How do you know so much about me?” Shawn studied his head, looking for any sign of an expression.

            “I studied.  I studied you for years.  Your daddy was the only one who had ever gotten away from me.  Now you.  But I got your dad… you on the other hand, I can’t get.”

            “Why?  Why not just take me with Tab?”

            “You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” he cocked his head to the side.

            “No.”

            “Think of it this way,” the Slender Man straightened his tie, “When you humans are encountered with a new disease, you create a medicine, or an antibiotic.  An antibiotic is formed by collecting a sample of the disease and putting it in the right conditions to create an anti-disease.  What took place with you is… a vaccination of sorts.”

            “What do you mean?” Shawn’s hands were shaking, his eyes wide, not leaving the Slender Man’s blank face.

            “Your daddy bottle fed you, didn’t he?  When your mom wasn’t home… let’s say someone got a sample,” he put his hand to his breast, “Let’s say, with a knife,” Shawn’s body went numb, “And that sample got mixed into your baby bottle.”  Shawn stared at him a moment, then slowly began shaking his head from side to side, “Your daddy had no idea what he was doing.  He just hoped he was doing the right thing.  He had no idea what he created.  It was one last back-handed effort to get back at me for his brother.  But I showed him, when I took his daughter.  He couldn’t make her immune.”  Shawn was backing away slowly, still shaking his head, “There were some side effects of course, as there are with any medicine.  Extreme height, a high metabolism… any of this ring a bell, Shawny?”

            “No… no, you aren’t in me,” Shawn stared down at his shaking hands.

            “Oh, but I am.  So you see, Shawny, that’s why I can’t touch you.  But I can still hurt you,” Shawn looked back at him suddenly, “I can take anyone you know, anyone I want to.  All I have to do is see them and they have to see me.  And I know exactly who I am going to take from you, Shawn Rider,” Shawn clenched his fists, “‘He’s always watching.’  Your uncle was right, you know.  I am always watching.”

            “I won’t let you take her.”

            “Go ahead and stop me,” the Slender Man headed for the door and Shawn lunged forward, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket, “I may not be able to touch you, but I can touch your clothes,” the Slender Man elbowed Shawn hard in the ribs.

            He fell backwards, the air being knocked out of him.  The Slender Man continued for the exit, “No!” he jumped up, wrapping his arms around the Slender Man’s waist, spinning rapidly and throwing him to the ground.

They both heard a stick crack outside as someone’s foot came down on it.  They both looked at each other and the Slender Man stood without using his arms to push himself up and stood a moment, just barely taller than Shawn.

“Shawn?” Rachel’s voice echoed in the abandoned building.

As she appeared around the doorway, Shawn saw the Slender Man begin towards her in his peripheral vision.  Without thinking he stepped forward and grabbed his exposed hand with between his own.  The Slender Man looked down at his hand, then at Shawn’s face before evaporating in a black and white distorted mass, the sound of static overwhelmingly loud.  Shawn felt something like an electrical charge surge through his body and fell to the ground, hitting his shoulder hard on the tile floor.

Rachel stood still, shocked.  She had seen him; she had seen the Slender Man for that brief moment before Shawn had touched him.  His arms… and his face.  Or lack of face, to be more honest.  She ran to Shawn and knelt beside him.

“Shawn?  Are you okay?” he lie perfectly still, breathing lightly.  Suddenly his arm shot up, grabbing her throat and squeezing.  She grabbed his wrist in frightened surprise, her eyes bulging as her air supply was cut off.

Shawn stared at her intensely, his green eyes not his own, his teeth gritted together, “No!”  He cried out, releasing her neck and falling backwards.  She quickly backed away against the far wall, holding her neck and coughing.

“Antibody or not, I’m still inside you and I’m stronger than you are,” the Slender Man’s voice said inside his head.

“No, that’s where you’re wrong, Slender Man.  I won’t let you hurt her,” Shawn winced, fighting against the muscles in his body trying to move toward Rachel.  The pain was excruciating, it was as if his body was being pulled in a demented game of tug of war.  Rachel felt her lips begin to quiver as a tear slid down her cheek.  She slowly approached him.

“You can’t stop me, Shawny.”

“I love her!  I love her, and I won’t let you kill her!”  She reached out slowly and let the tips of her fingers touch his cheek.  He closed his eyes at her touch, breathing hard, fighting off the urge to grab her, “Why do you take them?  Huh?  Why?”

“That doesn’t matter now, does it?” the Slender Man replied.

Rachel gripped his hair gently and he began to cry, “I love her… and she loves me.  You hear that, Slender Man, she loves me.  Is that why you take them, because no one loves you?  Do you just want someone to love you too?” he clenched his jaw in agony, “Well she doesn’t love you, Slender Man, you hear me, she loves me!”  He cried out in pain as his arm tried to reach up from the floor, but he pressed his palm flat against the tile, “She loves me!”  She continued to cry, gripping and releasing his hair rhythmically.  “No one will ever love you, Slender Man.  No one.”  The sound of static fizzed up in his mind like a shaken up soda, “No one!” he yelled and the static peaked then was gone.  The fight went out of his muscles and he fell backwards, but Rachel caught him, pulling him close to her.

“Shawn?  Shawn?”  she said rubbing his face.  He coughed, his eyes fluttering open, “Shawn.”  She smiled, the tears coming heavier now.

“Yeah babe.  It’s me… he’s gone,” he was breathing heavily, sweat soaking through his clothes.

She hugged him tighter to her, breaking into sobs, “I love you, Shawn Rider, I love you with all my heart, that’s why I even followed you out here.”

“I know,” he hugged her back weakly, his arms still aching from his battle with himself, “I really don’t mind that you worry… I worry about you too,” he smiled distantly, “I stopped him.  I saved you.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, wiping her face, “Yeah you did, babe.”

“Let’s go home.”

“Yeah,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes one last time before helping him to his feet.

 

Shawn sat in his favorite leather chair, his arm in a sling.  He had fractured his shoulder when he had fallen.  Rachel walked into the living room with two beers in hand, setting them down on the coffee table then planting herself on the sofa.

“Is it better?” she asked, staring into her beer, “Knowing what happened to them… is it better than not knowing?”

He sat a moment, thinking it over, “I think so… it doesn’t make it any less worse what happened,” he looked up at her, “But yes, it’s better to know.  Not knowing was awful… wondering when they’d find the bodies today, tomorrow, or years from now.  Or never.”

She reached over, resting her hand on his good arm, “But it’s over now.  You stopped it.”

“Yeah… but I wonder.  How many children did he just… take?  That legend from Germany that my uncle wrote about, it dates back to the fifteen hundreds.  Just think of all the lost souls…”

“Or think about the one soul you still have right next to you,” she dropped his gaze, pulling her arm back.

“Or that,” he stood, moving over next to her on the sofa, “I’m more thankful for that than anything.”

She still avoided his eyes, staring into her beer, “When I said I loved you, I always meant it.  And when you said it, I thought you meant it,” he saw tears beginning to well up in her eyes, “But that night… when you said you loved me… I knew.  I knew that you really meant it and didn’t just say it because you’re supposed to or something.”

“I’ve always meant it,” he leaned into her, kissing her gently, “You were the only girl I ever really cared to have notice me, shattered statue or not.”

Her cheeks flushed and she smiled.  They sat together in silence, looking into each other’s eyes.  No words were necessary.

 

Shawn slowly and quietly got out of bed to use the restroom.  After relieving himself, he walked into the living room and grabbed the two journals from on top of the bookshelf and set them on the coffee table.  Then he opened his Senior yearbook and removed the yellowed article, setting it on top of the journals and returned the yearbook to its place on the shelf.  He picked up the two journals and the article and walked into the kitchen, placing them quietly in the trashcan and then covering them with yesterday’s paper.  It was time to put those demons to rest.

Author's Note

This story, the location, and the characters are strictly fiction. However, the Slender Man is said to come from an urban legend. The legend dates back to medieval Germany in tales of the ‘Grosse Mann,’ who would watch children and then take them, the children never to be seen again. He was described as a tall, well-dressed man-like figure with long arms, sometimes more than two, and a blank face. The Slender Man has supposedly appeared in some photographs of children who later disappeared. Decide for yourself what you think is real. To learn more search ‘Slender Man’ on the Internet. I hope you enjoyed this story. –Sarah J Dhue