Dexter Morgenstern - The Slender Man

“Shana, let’s just not worry about it, I’m sure that with time. With time Denise will go away. How are you feeling? Do you need medicine for your sickness?” I ask, trying to veer off topic.

She shakes her head.

“We got some already. I’ve been taking antihistamine,” she answers.

“It’s not working though,” she admits.

“Then tomorrow I’ll try and bring some Dayquil or something,” I say.

“Bring Nyquil,” she says. Oh right, she can’t sleep. I can see Shana’s mind is still on what to do about her sister. I know in my mind that Shana seeing her sister, Jason seeing his brother, and me seeing… what I’ve been seeing, is no coincidence. There’s something going on.

“Oh yeah. Ms. Alder wants you to finish your essay. I told her you couldn’t but she wanted me to ask anyway. I have to get mine done tonight,” I say, staying off the Denise topic.

She shakes her head and reaches under the bed. “Our relatives all visited at once, each afternoon. I had to do something to pass the time when I ignored Denise,” she says. She pulls out a small pile of papers from underneath the bed.

“You did your essay?” I whispered in surprise. In shivah you’re not supposed to work or do schoolwork.

“I did our essays. Just don’t tell my parents,” she says, handing me a few of the papers.

“You’ll want to copy it down yourself though, so it’s in your handwriting, and I put some spelling errors in there for you too.” I smile at her as I stuff the essay in my shirt. This is at least one good sign that Shana is still Shana.

“You want me to sneak you your homework too?” I chuckle.

She moves her head back and forth as if pondering.

“Just come? Keep me company?” she says. I nod.

“Every day,” I say. She smiles.

“I haven’t seen Denise once since you guys came.

“We tend to ward evil spirits away,” I joke. The door opens, and I turn to see Mom entering.

“We need to get going,” she says rather glumly. Perhaps they ran out of good things to say about Denise and can’t handle the awkward silence any more. Before I can respond, Shana hugs me tight.

“Come here straight from school.” I am about to ask if she still wants food but then I realized just how little she ate of her favorite dishes today and figure I won’t say anything.

“Promise. I’ll walk if I have to,” I say. Mom escorts me downstairs and we see Dad putting his jacket on, saying his goodbyes to the Hawthorns. Mom and I take our turn and then head out. Dad has already started the car. The drive home is silent, aside from the radio talk show. It’s a local radio channel and three guesses on what’s still the main subject for the local news? Right.

As I gaze out the window my mind is stuck on Denise, or at least the Denise-apparition. I’ve got to figure out what’s really going on. Maybe the hallucinations really have something to do with the sickness, or maybe ghosts are just real? I’ve always taken an agnostic approach to ghosts and things like that, but if these visions aren’t ghosts, then what are they?

As we get close to home the radio starts to fade out. Static! I look right and left, looking for… it. Dad is closing in on our driveway when he slams on the brakes. Does he see it?

“Adam!” he roars. He and Mom both jump out of the car. I follow suit. We get out and I walk up to them. There is Adam, cast and all, walking in the middle of the road. It’s like he didn’t even see us! As I approach, my parents are saying things like “What’s wrong with you?” “Where’s your Bubbe?” or “You’re going to tear open your stitches,” but I’m not focused on them. I’m still looking for it, but I can’t find it, or sense it, anywhere.

“I’m going to check on Hannah,” says Dad. “Alyssa, take your brother inside,” he orders as he busts in through our already open front door. Mom goes back to take care of the car. I walk over and take Adam’s good hand, but it’s limp, as if he’s not holding back. He’s not even looking at me, or us. He’s looking down the road… at the forest. Suddenly his hand shocks me. Not a normal contact shock, but that static wave comes through me. He snaps out of it before giving me a confused and terrified look, but he doesn’t say anything. He starts to walk along with me, and we go inside the house.

I can hear Dad yelling at Bubbe.

“What were you doing letting him run around in the road? He shouldn’t have been out of bed at all!”

“Well I tried to feed the child but he was too sleepy so I laid him down and went up to bed myself!” she shouts back. I decide to let them argue as I escort Adam upstairs and back into bed. It’s not her fault. It’s something to do with that static shadow, these ghosts, and the illness that’s going around. After I tuck him in I feel something slide out of my shirt and I check to see the front page of the essay Shana wrote in my name has fallen.

“Oh right, gotta copy this,” I say reluctantly. I chuckle to myself. If I’m too lazy to copy it, then I’d have had no chance to write it myself. Where would I be without Shana? My little moment of humor leaves me as I see the despairing topic she wrote about; The Salem Witch Trials.

I don’t like how melancholy Shana’s essays are. The first time we were discussing the project the mood was cheerful, but when I look at these essays I feel saddened. It feels like Shana really does have ghosts haunting her, almost dictating what she writes. Our roles in the Salem Witch Trials are very different. She’s one of the women accused of witchcraft, and gets executed for it, but I am a woman who only sympathizes with the witches. I feel like that plays into what happened when she lost Denise, and I kept Adam. She’s not jealous, but she’s been hit harder than I have.

The story tells about how she’s accused and I work hard to protest and defend her, but in the end I’m hanged as well. Is she trying to tell me something with this? Is that why she wrote the essays so diligently? Is this her way of telling me not to help her? It’s ironic, I can figure out that something supernatural is going on around here quickly, but I can’t read in between the lines my best friend has written.

I almost don’t want to turn these essays in, but if I care about our grades, then I really have no choice. Beggars can’t be choosers, as my Bubbe likes to remind me when I’m being picky. I’m walking from the bus to the school with Shana’s essay, and my copied version, when I see something. There is a cop questioning one of the students at the school. I get closer and recognize the officer as Deputy Yew, the policeman who drove Shana and me to the hospital.

When I enter his field of vision he looks up at me and waves me over. I walk up to him and catch the last phrase of his conversation.

“…then let me know if you hear anything. Thanks… Alyssa,” he says.

“Good morning,” I greet. He didn’t cut himself when he shaved this morning.

“I’m afraid I have some more bad news,” he said. Bad news? About who ? It can’t be Adam or anyone in my family because I saw them not thirty minutes ago. Wait a minute. Shana!

“Is she alright?” I ask immediately.

“She? Who? This is about Mr. Douglas, and some missing students,” he says.

“Oh, go on,” I say, relieved.

“We’ve received reports of some missing children, teenagers mostly. We can’t launch a formal investigation, but all of the missing teens are related to some of the deceased,” he explains. I nod.

“Alright, now one of those missing teens is Jason Larch,” he says.

Jason is missing, that doesn’t sound like bad news to me.