Dexter Morgenstern - The Slender Man

As I enter the woods through the dirt trail, I hear the crunching of leaves underneath my feet. It takes me a while to notice, but then I finally stop and look. The trail is almost completely covered in leaves. Most of them still have a little green in them. It’s late spring though, and the trees are supposed to be springing- or sprung with leaves right now. I look up at the trees above me and am surprised at just how bare they seem. They usually don’t shed this vigorously until autumn, and even then the leaves are generally dead and brown before they fall.

“What’s going on?” I say to myself. I continue on down the trail, stomping on the leaves with my eyes pinned on the ground. It’s taking me much longer than I remember to follow the trail to the clearing. It must have been years since I actually took the trail route home, so maybe my memory is just foggy.

After way more of my allotted hour than should be is spent, I finally reach that sharp turn, and step off the trail onto my route. I march forward, into the clearing and slip. The extra fallen leaves have hidden those sudden slopes or roots I’m used to seeing out of the corner of my eye and avoiding them. I don’t get up instantly. Instead, I pummel the ground with my fists in anger. I want to go see Shana like I promised, but she lives like ten miles from the school, and if I don’t call Dad from the home phone, he’ll probably head down to the Hawthorns himself. What does he know? If there is really a reason to be worried about Shana (and to be honest, with her visions, there is), then having me there will help her.

I realize I’m only wasting time- although to be honest I am not really worried about making it home within an hour. I jump up to my feet and lean forward against a tree. My vision goes fuzzy and I feel a wave of dizziness hit my head. I must have gotten up too quickly. When my vision returns, I still feel fuzzy and shake out my limbs.

As I do, I notice something. The tree I was just leaning against looms above me. It’s not as tall as the other trees, only around fifteen feet tall, but it’s very… slender. It’s so slim I can probably wrap my hands together around it. It’s dark, almost black, and its bark is very rough to the touch. I don’t recognize it at all. I look around to make sure that I’m in the right clearing, and aside from the excessive amounts of fallen leaves, and this tree, everything looks familiar. I take a step back to examine the tree.

“What kind of tree is this?” I ask myself aloud. It only has six branches. Two of them hang down perpendicular to each other and almost reach the ground. They are both angled at the same point, as if they’re jointed. The other four branches have the same joint shaped, but are angled up and all point away from the tree. At the top of the tree, or head of the tree, is huge, gnarly, bevel. It sticks out like a large tumor.

“There’s no way I wouldn’t have seen this tree before,” I say aloud, and it’s true. If I saw a tree this weird-looking before I would have noticed it, just like I do now. It’s very creepy.

I realize I’ve wasted more time and begin to resume my walk. I find my way down the slope, consciously recalling the locations that any roots may be hidden. I’m at the bottom of the hill when I sense something, and turn around. I only look for a second, but there stands the monster at the top of the hill. In that second, so much terror fills my gut, I forget who I am. I just run. I’m not worried about the hair in my face. I’m not worried about the ripping sound my skirt is making, and I’m not worried about the slippery thuds of my Chuck Taylor’s landing against the leafy ground. I twist and turn and angle around trees, tripping on roots, but my stride is so wide that I simply land with my next foot before I fall. I feel as if I have to make myself breathe, because if I don’t consciously demand it, I’ll forget.

I want to look back, to see if it’s chasing me, or maybe to see if it’s just a trick of the mind, but I’m too afraid to, and with the loud sound of leaves crumbling, branches snapping, and the wind rushing past my face, I’m lucky to hear myself breathe. I run for who knows how long until I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The end of the forest! I have a leaden weight of terror in my stomach as I draw near though. What if it’s just toying with me? What if it’s waiting to pounce and drag me back into the woods, just as I’m about to emerge? I sprint faster, if that’s even possible, and close my eyes as I clear the woods. If it does grab me, I don’t want to see that horizon dragged away from me. I hear something. It sounds like something screeching. Oh no! It’s coming .

I hear a loud honk, and open my eyes just in time to see myself run right into a car. It had already stopped moving before I hit it, but my stomach tells me I still ran into it too hard.

“Alyssa? What is the matter with you?” I hear. I open my eyes. Karen Willow is standing before me, frightened as can be.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you okay?” she asks. The throbbing pain in my stomach subsides a bit before I’m able to speak.

“I thought something was chasing me. I’m not sure what it was,” I finally answer.

She looks back at the tree line, eyes wide. “Well I don’t see anything, you must have lost it,” she says. I chuckle a bit as I think about what I saw. “It might have been a snake. I honestly didn’t look at it hard enough to tell,” I say without thinking. Did I really see the fiend at the top of the hill with that tree?

No. I laugh again. I saw the tree, that’s what spooked me. I let out a small breath.

“Well if it was a snake, it probably took off just as fast as you did-in the other direction,” she says.

“Yeah, sorry. Did I hurt your car?” I ask. I look and can’t see any apparent damage.

She brushes the hood as if to knock dust off before shaking her head.

“No it looks fine. Say, I just came from your house. I invited your brother to Lionel’s birthday party next week. You’re welcome to come too. I think Lionel feels bad about how he cried in front of you at the funeral.

“Oh um, sure I’ll try and make it.” If I’m not grounded, I leave out.

“Oh great, he’ll love to see you! Anyway I have to head out, try not to run into any more cars,” she says before turning to get back inside.

“Alright I’ll try,” I say with a small smile. Damn tree.

The ride to Shana’s house isn’t as happy as I hoped it would be. Dad is barely letting me come today. I don’t think he’s as mad about the fact that I cheated on the essay as he is about how it makes him look. How would me not bringing one in look? How about that huh? I’m not going to forgive Ms. Alder any time soon. Maybe what I did is wrong, but it’s not her business to go out of her way to prove it. It’s just a grade.

I’m grounded over the weekend, which normally would be okay with me, seeing as I don’t leave the house much anyway, but that means I won’t get to see Shana then. The only reason I’m even allowed to go today is because my Mom thinks it’s a good idea to be forgiving on the Sabbath.

Adam and Bubbe would have come, but Adam is still sick, and we think it’s best she watch over him while we’re out. This time Adam sleeps in her room so he won’t go on any random trips during the night. When we get to the Hawthorn’s, the house is as glum as I feel. Dad greets them with a bright smile and a “Shabbat Shalom,” but something is keeping the Hawthorn’s from rejoicing- besides Denise’s death.

We get inside and see Shana sitting upon a couch, not even looking up at us. Did she get in trouble about the essays too? No Dad said none of us should mention it to them because it would cause unnecessary trouble, and if the teacher or principal called they wouldn’t answer the phone, so they wouldn’t know from the school either. I walk over to Shana and attempt to hug her, but it takes her a while to figure out what I was doing, and then she only feebly reaches up and hugs back.