Slender Story
I was his apprentice. He taught me how to install insulation, put up Sheetrock, tape it, cover it in mud, and how to paint. We were putting the finishing touches on the new house, before it was painted.
When the last of the mud edges had been feathered, my teacher left. His name was David Thompson, age twenty-nine, brown-haired, blue eyed, was cut, six foot five, and smart. He wrote a lot, and he was a creditted artist, but he kept his works to himself. He had told me to sit down somewhere and rest my arms while he ordered us Chick-Fil-A and talked to our employer.
My name is Matthew Samson. I am sixteen years old, with blond hair and brown eyes. I just started the working part of my life under David, and, tough as the job was, we were paid really well. 8 bucks an hour, 50 bucks per completed task. Sure, taxes and supplies got in the way, but hey, I loved it.
He came back with news. "So, apparently,the guy wants us to paint the house in American colors, but they gotta be 'sensible'." He shook his head. How 'bout we just paint the brick chiminy red, the window panes and doors white,and everything else blue? It's so simple." I laughed at that. First, the bricks making up the chiminy were red, and the doors and panes were white. All we had to do was paint the wood blue. David laughed too, and said," Ah, just teasing. We really don't have to paint anything; we are done!" He cheered and pulled out his phone. He ordered two Chicken sandwiches, two large fries, and two Mr. Pibbs.
"And I'll also like fifty million kectup packets." I suddenly realized who he was talking to: Brain Maguire. He worked at Chick-Fil-A because he was Catholic, and cause he really needed that scholarship. I, too,was Catholic, and so was David, so every Sunday we went to church together, then he bought us doughnuts and went bowling. It was fun since David was a freelance construction worker, so he could pick and choose his jobs. Plus, we learned a lot about each other. Once though, Brian mentioned a secret level in Slender: The Arrival, but David asked if we could talk about something else. The strange thing was, he wasn't the superstitous type.
Some time later,the food was delivered to us, we said grace, and dug in. I ate as I would in the restaurant, but David finished in seven minutes. He stood up and stretched,then stood there for a few seconds while his vision returned. There was a trash can nearby, about four yards away; David took his trash, put it in his crosse,whipped it up and down, then flung it in the trash pushed the flap and fell in. The flap shut.
"OOOOOH! Buzzer beater!"He did a little then I finished my meal. He handed me the crosse, and I attempted to do the same thing he did; I chucked the trash at the trash can, but it hit the flap, which didn't move, and the pile fell to the ground. I reddedned.
"Hey man, don't worry about need a ton of pressure to do form was excellent; now focus solely on strength of the shot." With that, he darted to the trash pile, scooped it up, and slammed it into the flap.
"Bud, what did I tell you about playing favorites? Eat it!" Heh. Around him, smiles were nearby. He looked at me, and I looked back. He knew what I wanted, and I grinned. He sighed, "Alright, fine. You can show me this game you're always jibbering about."
I lept for joy. "Great! Let's go to my house; the game is on there." David pulled out his keys, and we walked to the car. Well, he did; I, on the other hand, sprinted there. I couldn't believe it! David Thompson was going to experience the Slender Man!
When we got there, I started leaping around, begging him to hurry up. David knocked on the front door, and my mother answered it.
"David! Why are you here?" Her face contained genuine surprise. David explained to her what I've pleaded for him to try. I pulled out my phone, and texted Brian that David would finally do it. When I put it away, David and my mother finished their conversation, and let us in.
I practically dragged David to my room,but then I wished I'd slow down to fix it up. There were clothes strewn everywhere, Snickers wrappers had colonized my trash can, and my desk was piled with stacks of paper. I thought, in his eyes, I was an accountant who had no idea how to clean. I expected him to give me the look my mom gives me, but he looked at the few clean points and said, "Nice room. Lot better than a dorm room." Instantly, I realized David would never humiliate me, but I still felt embarrassed.
He chuckled. "Heh, back at UGA, I shared a dorm room with a Slender freak. I mean, he had all the sketches from the game, he had the posters, the games, the movies, the documentaries; he was a pyschopath." He yawned, stretched, bent down, and shoved everything off to the sides, so that there was a nice path to the computer. We walked to the computer on my desk, and I logged in. I clicked on the game, and handed the mouse over to him. The name was scribbled on the screen, making it spooky. Slender: The Arrival. He clicked "Start Game" and the intro appeared.
David stayed silent while the words move. His eyebrow raised as the words, "And as you find yourself alone as he casts that bedevilling gaze, how far will it take you?" appeared. I heard him mutter something, but the only words I got were "no idea" and "Sarah". Woah. Who was Sarah?
"Sarah was my next door neighbor when I was little. She was, you could say, my girlfriend." I had no idea I said that aloud.
"She moved into the house next to me. She and I automatically became friends, playing with each other on the trampoline, or running around playing tag. Another intrest of ours was scaring ourselves silly. We looked up every scary creature, and pretended they were after us. We started with Freddy Krueger. Sarah looked up his biography on Wikipedia, and I learned his song and bought all of his movies. We spent the weekend watching him infiltrate teenagers' dreams,and killing them." He began to sing. "One, two, he's coming for you. Three, four, lock your door. Five, six, get a crucifix. Seven, eight, stay up late. Nine, ten, do it over again." Something about the way he sang made the song spooky.
"Our next target was Jason. The same process. Then Michael Meyers. Chucky. Scream. It was all the same, so we stopped."
"We learned from school about a teenager named Jeff. Apparently, he would sneak into your house and kill you with a knife. If you woke up, he would tell you to go to sleep. Well, we looked him up. It turned out the guy was possessed. Possessed! That was something new. We played his game, "Jeff the Killer". It was worthless. We threw him out. That's how we learned about Slender Man. Jeff supposedly encountered the entity. We looked him up on Youtube. I swear, there were three billion documentaries about him. We played "Slender: The Eight Pages" together. We spent the night screaming and laughing and pretending he was right outside our window." David smiled. "We then moved to this game." I was stunned,and he laughed."Come on, I'm not that old."
"We thought the first game was scary? Hah! The scariest thing in the game was his Proxy. Man,that thing would get you in mid Olympic jump. I have no idea why it was there, but I don't wanna know. Heh. Sarah found out that you had to blind the Proxy with the flashlight. Well, things got a bit easier. After literally fifty times, we got all generators,you'll see why they are generators, we got on the lift, and real quick, we did some brief research. We had to sprint across from the elevator to the concrete, or we risked getting caught by Slendy."
"We beat it, and all other Slendy , we got anxious. We had run out of his games to play. Desperately, we checked Google Play for some ideas. Well, there were Slendy games on there, Dark Town and Dead City, but they both sucked 'cause the pages didn't randomize, and we could beat it without seeing him. Bleech! Then, something from Scottyanimation caught our attention. You could play Slender yourself! We loved the thought, so we got it instantly."
I saw David's smile fall. "The day we tried it was a couple of weeks from Sarah's birthday. Our parents loved the fact that we got along together, so they could discuss "adult stuff" in a circle made of camping chairs on the driveway with beer. It was overcast, but still warm. It was almost dark. I don't think I told that we lived on a hill, and at the bottom of the hill were a grove of trees and a river. Our parents let us play the game in there, but if our house wasn't in our view while we were down there, we'd be grounded for a month. We said fine, turned it on, and began our adventure."
"We aimed the camera at the house, hoping to get a note. Well, we got one, but then Slendy chased us to the road. We didn't go directly across it or to it; we ran down to the grove and continued our search. We found a few more, and then bumped into Slenderman. Sarah dropped her tablet. It shattered on a rock. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me to look up. I did slowly, taking note of the long arms, suit, tie, and expressionless face. There he was. The source of our entertainment, looking down at us."
"Sarah was quiet, save for some whimpering. I wasn't. I said,'Hi! Are you THE Slender Man? Mom? Dad? Sarah's mom? Sarah's dad? Hello! Bonjour! Parlez-vous français? Si? No? Yo soy Español? Si? No? Maybe so?' Sarah thought it was Slender, but I engaged in full conversation. 'I'm David. This is Sarah. We live on that hill over there. We are best friends. We go to the same school. We are in the same classroom. We are in the same grade.' I remembered peering around. 'Excuse me, but where is your Proxy?' Slender shoved me into a large pile of dirt. I saw stars, and heard a scream. Sarah."
David wiped his eyes. " I got up, and I saw a tendril disappearing around a bend. I got up, and ran to the bend. 'HEY! YOU! GIVE SARAH BACK! SLENDER MAN! I'M TALKING TO YOU! GIVE HER BACK!' He whipped around, and was in front of me. His tentacles grabbed my throat, so we could be face-to-face. It was terrifying. The way he held me and the position of his head showed he was furious. He held up friendship bracelet that Sarah had given me. I heard a voice. 'Thanks to you, I have another one. But I won't let her loose on you. You are needed elsewhere.' He threw me into the river, where I slumped against a log. I saw him break the bracelet, and heard him make a droning noise. Instantly, something appeared. Slender kneeled down to it, and tickle it's chin. I heard him say,'Let's race to the next.' Within seconds, they were gone."
I spent so much time listening to him that I didn't realize he was still playing the game; he was on the last level. He began again. "There was a thorough search all over the area. Helicopters, dogs, the whole nine yards. Sarah's parents moved away. My grades dropped. My friends stayed away. I was moody and violent. I couldn't sleep.I knew I had slendersickness."
He stopped. I heard voices from the game, rasps, screams, more rasps,a man screaming, a girl laughing,then it stopped.
He stood, suddenly very tall, and his black shorts and shirt slid down across his arms and legs. His wrists changed into hair fell. " I now know. Know why he spared me. I've known for so long... Sarah... It's OK... He is here. He is with me. With us. Now, nothing will hinder us from helping him. Nothing...nothing... We won't be set apart again Sarah... I missed you..."
He groaned, as if in tremendous pain. His back shuddered. He gasped. Things sprouted from his back. They were long, and moving. Tendrils. He turned and spoke in a devillish voice. "The Operator needs assistance. Do not turn away from this offer, for it is only made once. Come, Matthew George Samson. Join us. Join me. This world finds you useless. COME WITH ME!" His tentacles shot out. We were on the third floor. They wrapped me, pushing me out the window. They followed my descent down onto the cold, horrible cement below...Choking me.
I hear a sickening smack. Something warm oozes from my head. My vision is beginning to get fuzzy. David-no, it, stood before me. He was so pale. No eyes, to see me suffer. No nose to smell my blood. No ears to hear my slowing breath.
"Do not fret, Matthew. You will be safe with me...Sarah can't wait to see you...Let's go."
No eyes to see me shake my head feebly. "I'm sorry...I thought you were my friend..."
No ears to hear me grunt as his tentacles penetrated my skin. "Farewell...My friend..."
No nose to smell me decay.
"Farewell..."