Dexter Morgenstern - The Slender Man

“Oh Alyssa, go to the nurse immediately,” she says.

“It’s the same thing everyone else—”

“No, just go see the nurse. She might have something for you,” she says.

I sigh and slam my book closed, hoping the blood seeps into more pages. It’s not my book, and I’m not the one who paid for it. She can lock this one up in that cluttered closet when I finish the school year- assuming I pass the grade. I walk out of the class, bloody tissue still in hand, and head down to the nurses office. There’s nothing the nurse can give me that will work I’m just sick, and if I end up taking too many medications it will probably just put me in a worse condition.

I march down to the nurse’s office, or at least I originally intend to, but come to think of it I’ve never been there, and I don’t even know where it is. I walk almost aimlessly around the school’s lobby trying to jar my brain to figure out where I might have seen it. I finally decide to head down toward the entrance near the offices when I see a sign that says “Nurse” and an arrow below it pointing into the hall. Now I recognize the place. The hall is actually just a corridor that leads to a shared sitting area for both the school nurse and the school counselor. The counselor has been justifiably absent this week, but I’m surprised that they haven’t hired a substitute for her.

In the sitting area I see four students. Two of the students look just like me, another looks like he might be struggling with asthma, and the fourth looks just fine; he’s probably just shamming. I decide that since I already know that the nurse can’t do much about my nosebleed anyway, I’ll just go patch it up myself. I leave the hall before anyone takes more than one good look at me and head down toward the restrooms. I get inside and can almost forgive Ms. Alder’s adamancy. Blood is all over my hand and the lower part of my face. You’d think I have a raging case of hemophilia combined with a broken nose or something.

I think my body is reacting to the illness worse than the others. That makes sense given my poor immune system. I’m surprised it has taken me this long to catch it. I throw the soaked tissue away and begin rinsing my face with water. I watch as the blood dyes the water falling off my face. Once the water disappears down the drain, the sink shows only small signs of blood, I take a paper towel and plug my nose with it facing the ceiling. This usually hasn’t worked for these nosebleeds so I guess I’m just doing this to feel like I’m doing something to combat the nosebleed at all. I feel a little bit of blood drain down the back of my throat and have to force myself to not cough and get blood all over the bathroom.

I hear the door open. I don’t like the idea of people watching me handling a nosebleed or runny nose- or well, anything to do with my nose. Since tilting my head back isn’t helping anyway, I decide I might as well go ahead and use the bathroom. I walk into the stall as the other person enters the restroom. I hear that the other person is in fact two people and they’re talking to each other. I recognize the first voice as Lindsay Willow.

“…Yeah I was tardy today too. Mom wanted to work on my teeth. It’s getting on my nerves because you’re really only supposed to see the dentist like twice a year, but I already got my first check-up two months ago, and this is my second time. I think she’s just bored ’cause she doesn’t have many clients,” she says.

“Yeah well my Mom didn’t even want me to come today. You know another girl went missing? Well she says all of the missing people went crazy before disappearing, and she thinks I’m going crazy,” says the other girl. I don’t recognize her voice.

“Why would she think that?” asks Lindsay.

“Well I’ve been seeing things. Like I keep seeing this shadow out of the corner of my eye, and I keep having these real vivid nightmares about not being able to move and stuff like that. Hell, even I think I’m going crazy,” laughs the girl. This is no laughing matter though.

I finish and leave the stall quickly.

“Do you see the static- the shadow in your nightmares?” I ask. Lindsay looks at me with a surprised look in her eye. Lindsay is Jason’s age but she’s in the grade above me. She has long black hair with blue streaks in it, and a small amount of bluish eyeliner around her blue eyes. You can tell her favorite color is blue. The other girl has a similar style except her hair is short and with orange streaks, and with her tan complexion looks like she’s Filipino or Hawaiian. She’s giving me a surprised look as well, as if I’ve startled her, but that surprise glides into a glare.

Lindsay speaks first. “You’ve got a little uh,” she says, scratching under her nose. Oh right, my nosebleed.

“It’s rude to listen into other people’s conversations you know?” says the island girl. Great, instead of openly discussing it she just resorts to some snobby etiquette defense-mechanism. I roll my eyes and hold the tissue up to my nose.

“You want to bleed more?” she tests.

I look her in the eye. I’m not much of a fighter, especially now that I am sickened, but I would love to take my anger out on someone like her, and she’s my size anyway without looking physically fit. I can take her. She and I stare each other down like a pair of angry dogs for a full ten seconds before Lindsay pulls on her arm. The girl gives me one more size-up before turning and following Lindsay from the restroom. As I wash my hands and try futilely to stem the blood flow, I hear a message over the intercom.

“Attention, at the end of this period, we need all students to be present in the auditorium. This is mandatory. Thank you,” says Dad’s voice. They’re calling for a mandatory school assembly? The only time that happens is during graduation ceremonies, talent shows, plays, and things like that. This must have something to do with the missing students, or him ?

No, even if the apparition is common news by now there would be no way it’s discussed in public. Even people who have it would call the speaker crazy. I look at the clock on my phone. This period ends in three minutes. I decide I’ll go ahead and walk to the auditorium since my class will already be heading there by the time I get back. When I get there I’m surprised that the place is already half filled. Some of the classes have already taken their seats and I even notice a couple pairs of parents. Maybe Dad spent the day summoning parents for this meeting. I see Ms. Alder has already started seating her students so I find myself a chair with the rest of my class. The seats are all blue folding chairs that aren’t very comfortable, but I think they’re in use for their mobility, because the auditorium is the room used for dances and parties. It’s not long after I’m seated that the auditorium is full of students and staff. We end up waiting a few minutes before the guest speakers take their posts on stage. The speakers- are the police.

Several policemen including Deputy Yew and of course Sheriff Fraser take their places on stage. Deputy Yew stands uniformly with the other police, while the sheriff takes the stand.

“In all my time as sheriff this county has never seen much crime,” he begins.

“The worst we’ve seen are a few cases of theft, and once, and only once, a murder that was promptly solved. So it fills me with deep regret to see that when tragedy strikes this county our police force seems to have no leads,” he continues. He pauses before a brief moment, as if to collect his thoughts on how he’s going to continue.

“Recently we lost more than ten of our dear children in a very tragic accident, and since then more of our children have disappeared,” he says. There are no gasps of surprise from the audience. “We’ve been working on finding the missing children with no luck. Seven children have been reported missing since the accident. All of these children are affiliated with this school. I’m going to go over the list and if you’ve seen any of these children recently, please notify the police.”