The mid-day sun was rising. As the sun touched her skin, Wendy groaned in rejection and reached across the bed for her bedmate.
All she found was empty air.
Sudden cold panic filled her heart and she sat bolt upright, ready to shout his name... only to find her Dipper lighting a candle in the window. "Dipper? What are you doing?"
He looked at the candle's tiny dancing flame. "It's an old family tradition that Grunkle Stan told me about. When the pioneers settled this land, the Gravity Falls Forest was filled with all sorts of beasts who saw us people as easy prey. Before anyone set out, they left a candle in the window to sit there and burn until they returned. If they didn't come back by the time the candle melted..." He trailed off and looked at her. His eyes finished the story.
They left seven candles burning in the window that day.
/
Their plan had been to use the noon sun to avoid the forest's darkness for as long as possible.
That plan had been rendered useless when, after less than an hour's worth of traveling, the branches and canopy of leaves overhead dropped them all into pitch blackness. Anticipating this exact scenario, they lit their turned on their flashlights and Wendy lit an old lantern she was carrying. With nary a word spoken, they continued to follow the tracks in the dirt.
Hours passed and it was Robbie who finally slumped against a tree and wiped his sweaty brow. "Don't you think we could rest?" He muttered.
Dipper considered, then consented with a nod.
The group relaxed and rested a while, sipping cool water from canteens and munching snacks and some apples they'd carried from Thompson's house. For a moment, they weren't seven survivors on a desperate hunt to purge their home of an ancient evil; they were just seven friends enjoying a dark stroll in the woods.
Perhaps that's why Tambry was so startled when the drums began to sound in the distance. "Uh... anyone else hear that?"
The pleasant mood evaporated in an instant as they all became aware of the rapidly approaching steady thump that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Wendy glanced at Dipper. "Should we...?"
The light from all seven sources died.
"Formation. NOW." Dipper barked.
Just as they'd practiced over and over again, the seven people arranged themselves into a circular shape with each of them facing outward in a different direction. They backed up until they could feel their backs against someone else's. They froze, each staring out into the impenetrable darkness. Nate raised his hand and prepared lighter with a spray can of something flammable he had found.
The maddening beat continued untempered. It surrounded them and filled them. Every moment it seemed to grow in strength and frequency.
"Anyone see anything?"
"Nothing."
"Nothin' here either."
Something stuck out in the corner of Tambry's vision. A pale head, a long body... "THERE!"
On instinct, Nate turned and loosed a blast of flame from the improvised flamethrower. It shot out, shining them all in it's brilliant light...
...revealing the spindly tree an instant before the flame reduced it to a burning husk.
"Damn it, Tambry! I've only got enough juice for a few of those!" He snarled, hurriedly relighting his small flame once again.
Tambry apology was cut off by Dipper's exclamation. "OVER THERE!"
Again, a burst of fire gave light to the darkness.
Again, a long dead tree was consumed.
"This... is... ridiculous." Wendy almost laughed.
She choked off her laughter just as the maddening beat came to an abrupt stop.
The silence that now surrounded them seemed more frightening and dangerous than the noise had been.
The seven companions steadied their collective breath, trying their best to keep their fear reigned in. Their bodies squirmed against each other...
...and against something else.
"...is... is that...?" Thompson started.
Dipper cut him off. "No one move a muscle."
Lee's eye twitched. "How the fuck did it get behind us...?"
"STOP!" Dipper reasserted control and glared out into the woods. "We prepared for this. Run straight forward. How many paces Nate?"
Nate swallowed, his throat dry. "Three hundred paces."
"That's right. Then what Wendy?"
"Left one hundred paces. Dipper... I think it's touching me..."
"Good, Wendy. Last step Thompson?"
"Left again, three hundred paces back. Regroup and attack." He used his peripheral vision to try and see his face. "You promise we're gonna be okay?"
"...Yes." Dipper took a deep breath and tensed his muscles. "On three. One... two... THREE!"
The seven raced off separately into the dark woods.
/
Robbie, proud of his decision to take a flashlight, had just rounded the last turn and was ready to sprint back towards the rest of the group when some supernatural wind materialized and his light went out again.
Not missing a beat, Robbie doffed his backpack, retrieved a pair of batteries, and reignited the flashlights reassuring glow. He stood, a small grin on his face, and made ready to scorch his way down the home stretch.
Identical forest surrounded him.
He'd become turned around.
He was lost.
The beat returned to his ears.
Panicking only slightly, Robbie looked hurriedly between the two paths before him. He looked first left, then right, then left...
…it was right in front of him.
Robbie gasped and slammed his eyes shut on instinct. The beat was maddening, it's pulse almost seeming to match the rapid thumping of his heart. He held his head in his hands as he tried to drown out the maddening beat.
A strange warmth touched his head.
Robbie opened his eyes. The thing was directly in front of him, it's tentacle caressing his forehead. It tilted it's head.
Robbie screamed as his light was blown out by a second tentacle.
/
Nate caught a glimpse of the thing out of the corner of his eye. Disregarding the plans, the formations, and the strategies, he whirled towards the creature and shot a blast of flame at it.
DIRECT HIT! He watched it spasm from the fireball and actually stumble.
Filled with adrenaline and jubilation, Nate pressed forward, the fire stream pushing back the creature. He poured every bit of juice he had left into the it, intent on wiping this monstrosity from the face of the Earth.
The beast actually seemed to shrink away from the growing light.
Grinning triumphantly, Nate took a single defiant step forward. "My name is Nate Rianda, you unholy thing! And this... THIS IS COMPLIMENTS OF MY SISTER!" With as fierce a battle cry as he'd ever mustered, he loosed every bit of energy he had left as a ball of fire rushed towards the creature. It poofed in the air, heading directly for it's target...
...but the thing was gone.
And it was now a terrified young girl who faced down the fireball.
"NO!" Nate screamed even as the fireball collided with his little sister. He watched as she convulsed and spasmed as the flames took her. He watched her skin melt, her eyes pop, her flesh roast right down to the bone.
She collapsed to the ground, a crisp, smoking remnant of what she'd once been.
"No..." Nate muttered weakly, his legs giving out as his energy faded once and for all. His gaze remained fixated on the smoldering ruin that had been the last remnant of his family he'd ever known.
It never occurred to him that what he was seeing might be an illusion, one of it's many tricks.
Not even when it's tentacle wrapped around his neck.
/
Tambry ran, stumbling as best she could through the woods. Rough bark scraped against her shoulders, but she wouldn't feel it. Not now, not when she was running for her life, and the only light for her was that of her precious phone in front of her, illuminating the path ahead.
It was there, just ahead of her, and her brain squeezed itself like a dying spider.
"NO!" Tambry spun right back around, not taking a second more to whirl herself.
Yet something else stood before her.
Her own mother was standing by a tree, waving her to come closer.
"Mom?" Tambry barked, quickly checking behind her. It was gone.
"Tambry," her mother called to her, waving to her still.
"Mom, what the heck are you doing here?" Tambry demanded, taking a jittery pair of steps closer, "in the woods? You can't be here, it isn't safe!"
"Tambry, dear," her mother stepped from the tree, adjusting her shirt and skirt as she stepped closer, "you are afraid."
"I'm, ugh, no, I'm not scared mom," Tambry growled, staring at her mother's dark face as she approached. "How did you get here? My friends are here too, we need to all-"
"Tambry, are you afraid?"
Tambry blinked. The voice that had asked that was distorted. Her mother's voice was somewhere inside the echo that was coming from the person approaching her, but it was not... right. Like it was a shadow of a memory. Something less then real.
Fearfully, Tambry lifted her phone and illuminated her mothers face. Tambry put a hand over her mouth. There were no eyes in her mother's sockets.
"Tambry, are you afraid?" her mother asked again, her eyeless feature face tilting slightly to the side, smiling ever so slightly. "Are you afraid of the dark? Of that which walks between the shadows?" Tambry looked away as her mother stepped to be in front of her face and closed her eyes. "Tambry, please answer your mother. Are you afraid?"
Almost completely gone now, unable to breathe, Tambry shook in fear as tears began to stream down her face like rivers. Her precious phone fell to the forest floor. "Yes... I am afraid."
"Good."
The voice was not her mother's.
Her eyes snapped open and she stared at the long tentacles wrapped tightly about her. Her mother smiled wide and wider, the darkness of her eye sockets compelling Tambry to look ahead.
It was probably better than what was stepping up behind her.
With what little air she had left, Tambry laughed her lungs dry.
She laughed until she screamed.
/
"Shit!"
Lee leapt over a log, and landed on a loose rock. Keeping his balance to him, he slid down the side of a hill, tussling his feet forwards and backwards to keep himself upright. There was a sudden gash across his face- something had cut him. His hands instinctively went to his face, and he fell forward.
"SHIT!" he shouted, rolling down the hill without a hope of stopping. Rocks and twigs stabbed and smashed into his arms and fingers. Then there was a drop. Lee felt the world disappear below him, and he looked down.
He had fallen a clear fifteen feet.
He landed on one leg with a loud crack.
"F-FUCK!" he screamed into the air as fire blazed through his leg, racing into his brain, his lungs, his entire being. Without pretense to the situation, he struggled to keep quiet, gasping and moaning as he saw the clear indentation that his femur had taken. It was broken very badly.
"Oh no, man," Lee cried tears as his entire body shook. "Oh crap, oh fucking crap!"
He tried moving, pushing himself up.
A drumbeat in the woods echoed around him.
Lee gasped and fell back. He could feel the destroyed leg scream, and he bit his teeth down as hard as he could, hissing loudly. This wasn't good. That sound, he knew that sound. It was the only thing worse then death in his head.
"Guys!" Lee chanced as he called into the air around him. "GUYS!" he called again.
The beating sound was growing stronger. "No, no, no," Lee shook his head and looked around, a rock, a stick- anything to let him know he would die fighting. There, a rock the size of his hand. With a quick digging of his fingers, he pulled it to him, and clutched it above his head.
"Come out you ugly son of a bitch!"
That terrible drumbeat replied. Lee's ears were ringing, throbbing from the pain of his leg, broken and bleeding internally. He wasn't sure he would ever walk again, but it may not matter.
There was a rustle from above, and a figure slammed next to him with a sick thud. Lee yelled, incapable of pushing himself away.
It was Nate.
"NO!" Lee pulled himself closer to the face down man who had just smashed down into the earth, probably the same height as he had. "C'mon man! Nate! Talk to me, bro!" Lee desperately shook his shoulder. "Dude! Talk to me!"
"Lee..."
Lee gasped, and put his hand onto Nate's shoulder, comforting him. "Man, you okay? You- where is your flamethrower thing dude?"
Nate was stirring, but struggled to push himself upwards. Lee asked again, more intent on an answer. "Nate!"
Nate turned his head from the ground, his face scratched and his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and Lee felt all the pain of his wound sweep away like a rescinding tide.
"Lee, are you afraid?" Nate asked, his eye sockets pitch black.
Lee felt a twinge of fury. The man he had been ready to crawl his way back to civilization with was no more. He had been deceived. He was alone. No one was going to come for him if Nate hadn't. He raised his fist, clenching onto the stone.
And a black, tendril slid around it, forcing Lee to look up.
/
"...eighty nine, ninety, ninety one-"
Thompson was breathing hard and panting like a dog as he charged out a bush, his eyes wide and his gate feverish. He was running like a mad man, keeping straight and focused as he stayed on the course.
"Ninety five, ninety six," he told himself, breathing harder and harder. Did it really have to be so many steps? This was ridiculous. He wasn't even sure he was in the same section of the forest anymore, just so intent on running. But he had stayed true to his directions.
"Ninety nine, One hundred!" he gasped, and stopped for air, clutching his lungs.
As he raised up to look around, a portion of fog had rolled around the ground, pampering the floor with moisture.
"Oh, great. Now I can slip and die," Thompson whined to himself as he turned. "One... two... one, two, three," he began to jog.
There it was. The drumbeat. The thumping. It pushed against his head, against his sanity.
"Seven, eight, nine," Thompson said loudly, trying to push out that horrible sound in his head.
It was growing louder. He could feel something moving along side his vision, just as fast as he was going. He needed to be faster. Even faster than he could be. His legs were kicking hard into the air, lifting the debris of the forest floor high above him. He would not be stopped now- not after meticulously following the instructions to a tee.
"One hundred Twenty five!" he shouted, beside himself.
The thrumming grew louder. Wind and cold air whipped past him.
Thompson gritted his teeth angrily. How could it end like this? He couldn't let that happen. All this time, all these hours he spent being picked on and teased to be accept by his comrades, all the times it had been worth it, come down to being chased in the woods by some no-named faceless tall jerk-off?
" One hundred eighty nine!" he yelled into the woods, declaring his resistance.
His head hurt. Even with his breaths going as fast as he could, he felt his vision swimming. Balance was key now; if he fell, surely the monster would be on top of him in an instant. He couldn't let it come to that. He was stronger than that. He would make it, no matter the pain. His throat burned, his lungs screamed, and his heart raced faster than it should.
"Two hundred seventy eight!" he shouted with a gasp. He would die, or he would be taken. But he wouldn't stop trying. "Two hundred ninety seven! Three... Hundred!"
Finally he saw it, the clearing in the woods, the scorch marks left by Nate. He made it back.
"HA!" he shouted around him, spinning around in a circle, his arms spread out. "Ha! Ha... ha," he fell to the ground, the blood nor reaching his head fast enough.
Thompson clutched his chest, groaning in pain. It was tight. His fingers were numb, along with his toes. Everything else but his chest felt entirely number.
Yet he still heard the pounding. Was it his heartbeat? Was it the force of evil wandering in these woods he had outraced to get here, to meet up with his friends?
He wouldn't know. Something wrapped itself around his eyes and he screamed, feeling himself be pulled away. All Thompson could beg in his mind was that someone he knew find him, know how much he put into getting back to him, to reach them and smile once more.
His friends never came back for him.
/
"WENDY?!" Nothing. "NATE?!" No response. "LEE?!" Silence. "...ANYONE?!"
Beyond the light of his flashlight, Dipper's world was one of darkness and silence.
Something long, dark, and cylindrical shot out from the darkness and knocked his light to the ground. In the last flash of light before the light burned out, Dipper saw the monster he sought standing no more than a mere twenty feet in front of him.
Rage and hatred filled his heart and he launched himself at the beast with a defiant cry, intent of wiping the scum from the Earth through sheer blunt force.
The thing actually seemed surprised for a moment, but it recovered quickly and reached out for him with countless black tentacles.
Dipper closed his eyes and tensed for the impact of his body against the thing's thin frame... but it never came.
For the briefest instant, he felt like his body was passing through a veil of liquid, as though he were running through a particularly hard rain. The wet feeling passed, the darkness of the Gravity Falls Forest faded...
...into a bright sunny day at the Mystery Shack. He skidded to a stop, not fully listening to the bird song in the air and the sweet smell of pine in his nose. Confused, he looked around frantically. Of the creature, there was no sign.
A gentle breeze picked up and carried a worn trapper cap to his feet.
Wendy's hat.
He started at it, not fully comprehending it.
"Dipper!"
His head snapped towards the house at the sound of Wendy's familiar call.
"Dude, could you bring me my hat? The wind picked it up."
"Sure! Hang on." He responded on reflex before bending down and grabbing the hat's brim in his hand. A million thoughts raced through his mind. Had they done it? Had they chased it off?
Had they won?
He took a step towards the house and felt a twig snap beneath his foot.
The picturesque scene around him faded away like mist with the rising sun. The birdsong and sunlight and scents all faded into nothingness before his very eyes. He was still in the woods, still in the darkness...
...and still very much in danger.
He'd only realized that his lovers hat was still held tight in his hand when an enormous bonfire leapt to life before his eyes. He jumped back on instinct and recoiled from the intense flames. The light made the clearing seem much larger than it had seemed previously.
Two familiar figures stood on the opposite side of the fire, their backs to him.
Mabel.
Stan.
Overcome with joy, he opened his mouth to say something... and watched in horror as the hat fell into the flames before him.
As the hat curled and blackened in the intense heat, the two figures turned as one to face him. They all smiled at him with the same blank smile.
Their eyes were gone, replaced by gaping empty sockets.
Dipper's breath caught in his throat and he whirled to run into the darkness, to get away from the nightmare that his family had become.
Six more figures exited the woods and blacked his path.
Soos
Tambry.
Robbie.
Nate.
Lee.
Thompson.
They all wore the same blank smile.
All their eyes were missing.
Dipper could only watch in horror as his friends and comrades joined his family by the fire. The maddening beat began once again and the seven figures began to... dance. They cantered and whirled and spun in an awful dance of death around the bonfire. Their feet kept time with the beat and their undead revelry seemed to draw more figures from the dark woods. More and more came with each passing second to join the terrible dance.
Gravity Falls' missing children.
Candy Chu and her family.
Grenda.
Pacifica Northwest.
Gideon and Bud Gleeful.
Numerous people came that he did not recognize but could only be the once proud residents of cities like Portland, Pendleton, Prineville, Shaniko, The Dalles, Tillamook, Troutdale, West Linn..."
Hundreds of thousands of people came and joined the dance.
All wore the same smile.
All had no eyes.
The smoke from the bonfire began to coalesce into a definite shape. The man's body was impossibly thin, it's coat as black as the night sky, save a single red drop on it's chest. The shape observed the dancers and almost seemed to conduct the grisly beat with it's uncountable waving tentacles. The Slender One, now almost too large for Dipper to comprehend, peered down at the small boy with it's blank and uncaring face.
Dipper, his mind long gone, didn't have even the strength left to scream. He whimpered like a baby as he wet himself, tears streaming down his face.
The monstrous tentacles stopped conducting and the beat stopped with them. The dancers all froze and, as one, turned to face the shattered detective.
The tentacles pointed at him.
Still smiling their horrible smile, still staring at him with eyes that were no longer there, they advanced on him.
Dipper's eyes never left the Slender One's face.
They fell upon him.
/
It occurred to Wendy just before her leg snapped that maybe they should have taken tree roots into their running plan.
She screamed and tumbled to the floor, clutching at her fractured limb. She rolled to a stop and cried out again as she landed on the injury. Adrenaline and fear flooded her and she tried to stand and run, only to fall and cry again as the leg gave out fully. She rolled to the side and looked around in the pitch black. "DIPPER!" She yelled. "TAMBRY! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!"
At first, her only answer was silence.
Then a steady and rhythmic beat.
Wendy began to hyperventilate and tried again to put pressure on the leg. This time the pain was so great that she couldn't even scream. She shrugged off her backpack and searched frantically a an extra match to light her lantern . Her arm got tangled in one of the straps and she flung it off absent-mindedly...
Her arms.
A smile crossed her face and she gripped the lantern in her teeth and raised her left arm above her head ready to take climb the nearest tree the instant her lantern was lit. Finding her prize, she gripped the match and scratched it along the tanned leather of her bag.
The light revealed the impossibly thin man standing over her, regarding her with it's pale, blank face.
Wendy found it in herself to scream one more time. The match fell to the ground.
She blacked out before the flame had even burned out.