Entry 4

Day 12 - Thursday

I found others like me. Terrified. Hunted. Just trying to survive. Some of them who discovered that they weren’t alone, like I’m discovering now, said that it makes them feel better just knowing there are others. What the hell is their problem? That just means this thing is even more powerful than I thought, that I’m definitely not imagining it, and that no one knows what to do. I feel worse than ever. I had hoped that th

Day 14 - Saturday

I saw him again, the other night. It was almost ten, while I was working on the last entry. I couldn't bring myself to sit down at my computer again until now. I heard a noise, and I went to investigate. You always think you’re gonna be smarter than that, but, damn. I don’t even remember what the sound I heard was now, but it drew me towards the spare bedroom. I could already tell the lights were out, because there was only blackness leaking out from under the closed door. I hoped the sound was only the lights burning out. All of them at once. So, with a light bulb in one hand and a flash light in the other I stood contemplating the doorknob, trying to work up the nerve to go in.

I couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t just that it was dark; it was completely black. Even the lights from the hallway didn’t penetrate. I turned on my flashlight and pointed it inside, but the beam stopped at the entrance, swallowed by the darkness. I felt my jaw begin to hurt, and I realized I had been clenching it for some time now. I wanted to close the door, board it up, and then burn the house down. I wanted to charge into the room, find that skinny bastard, and beat him to death with my bare hands. Before I knew what I was doing, I had taken a step forward, and by that time I was resolved.

It was almost sticky, the blackness. As I moved through it I could feel it cling to my hands, then up my arms, my legs, my chest, and last of all my face. It felt heavy and thick, like it would fill my lungs and drown me if I tried to breathe. I couldn’t see or hear anything, I didn’t even know if I was still standing or if I had somehow fallen through a hole in the world. I thought I could feel the blackness forcing its way up my nostrils, into my mouth and down my throat, slipping stickily through my esophagus to choke the life from my chest. Then, suddenly, I was through, and the room was just the normal dark of a dark room, dimly lit from the hall lights, and I could just make out the shape of its furnishings. I turned, and got an unobstructed view out- no more shadowy wall.

I checked my flashlight only to find it had died in the few moments I was walking through the congealed dark. I swore, then, malice momentarily forgotten, slowly felt my way toward the lamp against the side wall, since I didn’t want to bother with the ceiling light right then. I gingerly replaced the bulb, and light immediately filled the room once again, casting long dark tendrils wherever it met with an obstruction. I examined the old bulb in my hand and discovered the inside was coated in a grimy brown substance. I gave my flashlight another look and found its bulb in the same condition. I was considering breaking the bulb open to get a closer look when I noticed something behind the door out of the corner of my eye. It looked like there was something written on the wall. I made my way over and pushed to door out of the way.

There was a symbol. Or maybe it was a letter in another language. Anyway, whatever it was, it just looked like a circle with an ‘X’ in the middle. And it looked like it was drawn in

Well, anyway, it’s not there anymore, so it must have just been something he made me see. I tried to remember if I had ever seen that anywhere else, in a book or in a class or a movie or anything, but if I was supposed to know what it meant, I guess I disappointed him there.

There was another light now, though, and I realized it was coming from my flashlight. The brown gunk seemed to be fading, and as I watched the light grew stronger, until it was back at its former intensity. I let myself smile a little, thankful for my good fortune. I turned toward the ceiling light to see if it had cleared and was about to come back on as well, and my flashlight’s beam found its way to the window that looks out on the front yard.

I dropped it immediately. He was there. Watching. Just waiting for me to look. The lamp light popped and died, leaving the flashlight shining towards my foot from the floor the only light in the room. I was paralyzed for the briefest moment, and I heard the sound of the window being lifted. The plastic runners creaked loudly. It was like

God, it sounded like children screaming. I waited and waited and waited for it to be over, waited for the sudden, sharp pain as he impaled me. The snap of my body as he broke me in two. The long, drawn out agony of being pulled apart and eaten. But the slow, screeching sound of the window was all that ever came.

Until it was over. Silence. He was coming in. He was coming in. He was coming in. I listened in the silence for a noise, a sign, anything. I don’t know why I thought I would hear anything, why he couldn’t already be inside, silently walking towards me, standing in front of me, behind me, getting ready to

There was the slightest hint of a rustle on the carpet, and I bent over and picked up the flashlight as quickly as possible, pointing it towards the window.

He was already in. He was already in and he was standing just feet away and he was already in and he was reaching out for me and he was already in and he was going to grab me and I ran out the door as fast as I could and slammed it closed. And I was stuck. My eyes were glued to the door and I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I could see him, his shadow, from under the door. It wasn’t possible, but I could see the outline of his entire body on the floor. His head cocked, like he was considering the door. His body, with, oh God the tentacles, I had seen them in the room, coming from his back and there they were again, shifting, twisting, writhing around his torso. His arm moved. The shadow slid slowly across the floor, hand open, reaching, up, up, as if it was groping, searching for something. I tried to stay as silent and still as possible, like I was somehow hiding from a shadow, but my throat started to tighten up. I fought it back as long as I could, but I finally lost, and small coughing fit wracked my chest.

His head immediately ticked, and his shadow arm shot toward where I was standing. As soon as it did there was a thud at my front door. I jumped, and involuntarily turned to look. There was nothing there, and when I looked back the shadow was gone.

I could feel that he was no longer directly nearby, but I still couldn’t move for another hour. Even then, all I could do was fall back against the hallway wall and slump there all night. I spent the whole night alternating between staring at the guest bedroom door and down the hall towards the front door, but nothing else happened. Still, I didn’t dare move until I heard my alarm from my bedroom and knew I had to get up eventually.

I put off opening the front door for as long as I could, but when I had to leave for work I had no choice. There was a dead rabbit on my front step, disemboweled, with its organs tucked neatly into small plastic bags in a perfect ring around it.

A lot of those other people carry cameras around. They take pictures, record themselves all day long. They catch images of him in photos, in tapes- as if seeing him in person wasn’t enough, they want to know he’s there rather than be happily unaware. No. No, I will not chain myself to a camera, grasping at glimpses of him as he drives me mad. I already know that he’s always there. I don’t need anything else to remind me.

Entry 3

Day 11 - Monday

I don’t know what it is. So many theories. So many questions. Too many answers. He’s an alien. He’s an interdimensional being. He’s a demon. He’s a figment of our collective unconscious. He’s a mutated human. He’s a product of Hitler’s occult practices, attempting (and failing) to manifest himself in an easily disguisable form. He only exists because you think about him, now try not to think about him. Apparently he has tentacles. Haven’t seen those yet.

If nothing else, my research has given me names. The Operator, Takkenmann, Der Ritter, Großmann. The Slender Man. Oh, God, The Slender Man.

And now, after the shower experience from my previous entry, and what happened this morning, I’m afraid to ever enter my bathroom again. I had just gotten out of the shower – I managed to keep my eyes open this time – and I was at the sink brushing my teeth. I knew he was there somewhere, but it wasn’t a malicious feeling, just the usual knowledge at the base of my neck. I bent over the sink to spit, and when I straightened, there was a handprint in the fogged mirror. It was almost a foot long, and the water droplets around it were frozen.

I don’t even know what it wants. I can only find theories. Some people think he takes his victims to another dimension, though nobody conjectures as to why. Others claim he eats his victims. Others have alleged reports of his victims being eviscerated, hung from trees, and their organs placed in bags around or inside their bodies. Maybe none of these are right. Maybe all of them are and he just likes to change it up every now and then.

I just hope it’s painless.

Entry 2

Day 9 - Saturday

It’s been a while since my first entry. Every time I sit down to write I can’t. I feel depressed. And sick, always sick. I can barely keep food down. That shouldn’t have happened. It couldn’t have happened.

Every morning I wake up from what little, feverish sleep I can get, terrified to open my eyes. I don’t know why I’m so afraid, I already know he’s there. Watching me. Always. I can feel him. I can

I can taste him. Taste his presence, his impossible stare, that hatred, that fear that disgust that face that face that face.

I finally open my eyes, and the room is bright because I never turn the lights off. Not anymore. Not that it does anything, because I know he can turn them off any time he wants. And I know he’s dancing just out of sight, skipping around the shadows of the room, watching me squirm.

But I walk to the shower, and let the water try to warm my icy naked vulnerable body. The bathroom is small, and I can see the entirety of it thanks to the mirror on the wall. There’s no way he can hide in here but I know he’s here anyway, in the shadows of the cabinet, under the door, behind the mirror. The soap stings my eyes and I can’t close them. I can’t. I can’t. But I have to, they close on their own, and now I’m left in the darkness with it. It’s there. I start to cough. He’s standing right there, I know he is, in the corner, hunched over beneath the ceiling, with his head cocked to the side, watching me. Reaching out to touch me. To grab me. To take me and steal me and break me and kill me and dissect me and eat me and collect me and

I don’t know how long it was before I noticed the cold water; my shivering. I don’t know how long I stood frozen in the shower with my eyes shut so tight they hurt. I almost opened them before I remembered him, but I had to open them eventually. It took every ounce of my willpower to open my eyelids to see him again, meet his gaze, acknowledge his existence, his power. There was nothing there, but the bathroom door was open.

Entry 1

Day 1 - Friday

I’m not sure why I feel like writing this. But I think I have to.

Twelve days ago. I was driving back from a party just after one in the morning, and I was a little drunk. Not bad, you know, I had only had a few beers, and there was no way I was blowing an .08, but I was certainly buzzed. I turned down my street – you know the kind: long and empty with city-planted trees lining the road on both sides – and relaxed a bit in my seat. I was only a minute or two from home, and I was already fantasizing about bed when my car suddenly stopped in the road. It wasn’t like it came to a screeching halt or anything, but the engine cut out, and it rolled to a stop after another hundred feet or so. The street was deserted, except for two or three cars parked outside the few other houses in the neighborhood.

This had never happened to my car before, and it took me completely by surprise since it was only a couple years old. The headlights were still on, the only source of light in the street, so the battery wasn’t the problem. Perplexed, I tried turning the engine over a few times, but it would only sputter out a moment later. I sighed heavily and sat back in my seat, buzz effectively killed, and then I noticed something just out of the range of my headlights. After focusing on it for a little while, I could just make out the shape of a pair of legs. I sighed again – in relief this time – hoping this person knew more about cars than I. I opened the car door and started to get out, but before I could stand a coughing fit overtook me and it was several seconds before I recovered. I looked back out at the person to see if they had moved any closer, to where I might recognize them as one of my neighbors.

They certainly had moved closer. I could now see all of their lower body. All five feet of it. I froze. This was impossible. None of my neighbors were that tall. No one was that tall. I took my hand from the door handle and slowly twisted the dial to set my car’s headlights to the high beams.

For the briefest moment, I saw every inch of him. His too long legs leading up to his too long torso and too long arms, clothed in a black suit and tie.  His head, cocked to the side, and I knew he was looking at me even though his face

Oh God.

He didn’t have one.

He moved. He took one spastic step towards my car and the lights went out- all of them- and I was left in pitch black. There was a footstep. And another. Oh God. I couldn’t even breathe. He would be here any second, he could close that distance in only a few strides with his height. Another footstep, so close, so loud. Why were they so loud?

The door. The door was open and I was frozen in place, listening as the footsteps got louder. He should be here by now. So loud, so long. What’s taking so long? My lungs were screaming for oxygen, I hadn’t taken a breath in so long so loud so long.

Silence. The footsteps were gone. The street looked brighter, the starlight broke through, no longer the empty, murky blackness. Cautiously, I dared to take a breath.

Nothing. My breathing came easier. I leaned my head back and coughed once.

My door slammed closed and his face was at my window. His empty face his nothing face his no eyes no mouth just skin nothing face. The car came alive once more, lights and engine on as if they had never been off and I stomped my foot down on the gas as hard as I could, straight through the neighborhood, out onto the streets, to the highway, to the lights of the city.