by Sam West
“Hmm. Your knowledge of this urban legend is thorough. What about the woman you saw in the street? Do you know about that urban legend?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s the legend of the slit mouth woman. Do you know it?”
“I do. But the real question is, why your association with Mary Blake and all these urban legends? I think it’s time you told me about that night, Casey. You can’t put it off any longer. It is, after all, the reason you are here.”
Casey let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes. He was right. It was time. Time to part with the dark secrets she had held onto in her heart for so long…
October 31st. 1999.
The evening had arrived.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
Jack smiled at her, and despite everything, her heart gave a painful lurch. They were standing in the wild and overgrown back garden of the derelict house. Casey stared up at the huge, tumbledown property. It might have been Edwardian, or Victorian, or something, Casey didn’t know. All she knew was it was an old, spooky house and this was a bad idea.
“Give me your foot,” he said, lacing his fingers together in a makeshift step.
Casey stared at the opened sash window she was supposed to be climbing through, and she froze. She just had a bad feeling about tonight. Every last shred of good sense screamed at her not to go through that window.
“Casey? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said with resolve, gripping the window frame and propelling herself upwards with Jack’s help.
Suddenly she regretted her choice of clothes. A short flowery dress teamed with DM boots had seemed like a good idea at the time but she figured Jack was getting an eyeful of her knickers round about now.
Then she was inside, dropping to the mouldy floorboards with ease, glad that Jack couldn’t see her blushes.
“You OK?” Jack called out.
“Fine.”
“Here, take this.”
Jack handed her a rucksack filled with booze for tonight’s adventures and climbed in effortlessly after her.
“We’re through here,” called out a deep male voice, making Casey jump.
Doug’s voice. Not for the first time, Casey quelled the deep sense of unease and even managed a smile for Jack in the watery moonlight that seeped in through the window.
“Come on,” he said, leading the way in the direction of Doug’s voice, the rucksack clinking on his shoulder.
Casey followed him out the high ceilinged room into the hallway, and then into another room much like the one they had just entered through.
Except the perimeter of this room was lined with tea light candles that cast eerie, moving shadows over the paint peeling walls. Casey noticed that the smell of rot and general neglect was less strong in this room, maybe due to the lit candles.
Doug and Angel sat cross legged in the middle of the room.
And so was Mary.
Casey stared in surprise at Mary; she was the last person in the world she expected to see tonight and another bout of nervous anxiety gripped her.
This was just wrong. She should just leave. Like now.
“Hey guys,” Angel said through half closed eyes. “Come join the party.”
For the first time Casey noticed the joint dangling from her fingers which she was now passing to Mary, like the two of them were the best of friends. The two girls looked like polar opposites; Angel in her sprayed on white t-shirt and high waisted, stone washed jeans that only girls with perfect figures like Angel could pull off, and Mary in her baggy, faded black t-shirt with ‘The Cure’ plastered over her chest.
Casey didn’t just smell a rat, she smelled a million diseased dead rats left to rot in the sun for many weeks.
“What’s going on?” she asked warily, not sitting next down to Jack when he plonked himself down on the floor next to Doug.
“Nothin’ yet, we were waiting for you guys,” Angel replied.
“Yeah, now you’re here at last we can get started,” Doug said.
Her eyes locked with Mary’s. She didn’t look distressed in any way. Maybe Doug and Angel were just being nice to her, atoning for past sins and all that.
Yeah right, keep telling yourself that…
“Sit down,” Jack ordered, patting the empty space next to him.
Reluctantly, she sat and Jack got to work opening a bottle of red wine with a cork screw.
“Do you guys know that this house is haunted?” Angel asked.
Everyone nodded. The supposed ghosts that haunted this house were something of an urban legend. According to local gossip, everyone that had ever lived in this house had gone mad, or turned into a homicidal maniac.
“So you all know the story of Mr Jones who slaughtered his entire family back in Victorian times?”
“Everybody knows that story,” Doug said in a bored tone. “He raped his wife and two teenaged daughters, and then he slaughtered them.”
Angel swiped his shoulder. “You don’t know the half of it. He didn’t just rape them the regular way. Oh no, he put them through weeks of the most depraved torture imaginable before he eventually slaughtered them. He kept them tied up in the bed, all three of them in a row chained to the headboard. He raped them repeatedly while the other two were forced to watch. He gave them water to keep them alive for longer and when they were half starved to death he cut off their toes and fingers and fed them to each other.”
“That’s sick. You’re making it up,” Doug said.
“I’m so not.”
Jack laughed, and took a hefty swig out of the wine bottle before handing it to her. ”That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.”
Mary remained silent, looking down at her meekly clasped hands in the lap of her long black skirt. There was a look of eagerness about her and her eyes shone. Casey felt suddenly and inexplicably sick. In that moment Mary reminded her of a puppy, desperate for love and eager to please her dog hating owner to wind up in a sack in the river.
“You believe me, don’t you Mary?” Angel asked.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Does anyone else have any spooky stories if mine wasn’t good enough for you?” Angel said, but there was no annoyance in her voice.
“How about the urban legend of the Slender Man?” Jack volunteered. “He’s a creature without a face,” he said, when everyone looked blankly at him. “He wears a black suit, and has abnormally long, thin limbs and is eight feet tall. It is said that he feeds on humans, in particular children. When he grabs his victims, if they see his face they cannot look away and are unable to run. One sign that this creature is beginning to hunt for victims is that children begin to have nightmares about him.”
Casey shivered.
“So what happens to Slender Man’s victims?” Angel asked.
“He eats their souls,” Jack said, drawing deeply on the joint that had ended up in his possession. “He sucks real hard on their mouths, and their very life essence leaves their bodies and enters the Slender Man’s. He sucks until you are a corpse.”
“Howsabout Click Clack?” Doug asked the three of them.
He went onto describe the urban legend of Click Clack, of the torso constantly searching for its next victim, which up until that point Casey had never heard of.
Afterwards, Jack came in with the urban legend of the slit mouthed woman.
“What was that?” Angel said when Jack had finished his story.
“What was what?” Doug asked.
“That creaking sound.”
“It’s the ghost of old Mr Jones and he’s coming to getcha!”
Angel squealed when Doug pushed her to the floor, growling into the side of her neck.
“Get off me, you oaf.”
Angel pushed him away and sat back up again.
Jack watched, a half smile on his face; a smile that struck her as cruel.
Instantly she dismissed it as a trick of the flickering candlelight.
“Why don’t we play a game?” Doug suggested to the group.
“What kind of game?” Angel asked.
“Truth or dare. But a special, Halloween style truth or dare.”
“Sounds like fun,” Jack said, and with a sinking heart Casey realised she had been right the first time; Jack did look different, he did look cruel.
That bad feeling was back and she knew she should leave.
But she remained sitting and ignored her good sense, acting like the teenager that she was.
“OK, I’ll go first,” Doug said. “Angel, truth or dare?”
“Oh, what the hell. Dare.”
Doug smiled a slow, sexy smile. “I dare you to take off your top.”
“Oh come on. You know I’m not wearing a bra.”
“Yeah.”
Angel smiled sweetly and shrugged, like he had asked her to do nothing more extraordinary than remove her shoes.
To Casey’s utter amazement she lifted up her top over her head, her perfect breasts coming into view.
Now she was topless, sitting there on the floor like it was the most normal thing in the world. The air felt different. Charged. No one spoke, not a single sound penetrated the air.
When she glanced over at her boyfriend he was openly staring at Angel’s breasts and her stomach lurched in jealousy. Jealousy and something else.
She realised she was scared. This was weird. It was wrong.
But still she did not leave. Instead she stared at Angel’s breasts. She had never seen such a perfect pair, not even on page three. Her nipples were pale pink, the fleshy orbs of her breasts full but perky.
Casey licked her dry lips.
Angel was the first to break the thick silence that had fallen upon the group.
“Jeez, you guys. You’re all acting like you’ve never seen a pair of tits before.”
Her words broke Casey’s paralysis and she scrambled to her feet.
“Hey, where are you going?” Jack asked.
“Home.”
“You can’t.”
Casey’s heart beat at twice normal speed but she put every effort into keeping the fear out of her voice.
“I can, and I am.”
“No,” her boyfriend insisted. “You can’t leave now, the game is just getting interesting.”
“Yeah, for you maybe. But not for me, seeing as I’m not a lesbian.”
Doug had got to his feet as Casey spoke and he was now over by the door. She spun round to look at him. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Locking you in.”
She watched incredulously when he turned a key in the lock of the door, and dropped it the front pocket of his jeans. “I got a lock put on the door especially for tonight.”
“You did what?” she asked, no longer able to keep the tremor out of her voice.
“Come and sit back down,” Jack called over to her.
She bit back tears.
“Mary,” she whispered, “don’t you want to leave?”
The girl lifted up her head and their eyes locked. Her hands were still clasped in her lap in her kneeling position.
“No.”
“No? Jesus Christ, are you serious?”
The girl ignored her and lowered her gaze.
“Mary wants to play the game,” Angel said, her perfect tits gleaming in the candlelight. “Mary wants to be part of the cool gang, don’t you Mary?”
Mary didn’t reply and Angel laughed.
“I don’t want to play,” Casey said, glaring defiantly at Angel.
“I thought you said she would be up for it,” Doug said to Jack, a note of accusation in his voice.
“I thought she might be once the game started,” he replied with a shrug. “But you guys did say she could just watch if she didn’t want to play. I thought you liked the idea of her watching.”
Doug glared at Jack as if weighing up his options. Then he shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. So long as she doesn’t get in the way.”
“Er, excuse me? I want to go. Like, now. Mary? Please, come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”
Mary continued to ignore her.
“Sit back down,” Jack said once more.
Casey glared at him.
What other choice did she have? She would sit. For now.
The truth was she was too scared to fight Doug for the key.
So she sat. But this time not so close to her boyfriend.
Make that ex-boyfriend, she thought. The bastard. The complete fucking bastard…
Tears rolled down Casey’s cheeks. The memories were just so vivid, it was like she was actually there, and she couldn’t handle it.
“In your own time Casey,” Dr Everett said.
“I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“It’s OK. Talk to me. You can trust me.”
“Oh God. It’s just too awful.”
“Here,” Dr Everett said, handing her a tissue.
Casey wiped her streaming eyes and sat upright on the couch.
“I’m sorry Doctor, I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. You have to let me help.”
Casey walked over to the window that looked down on the busy London street below. Dr Everett’s office was on the thirteenth floor and from up here the people on the broad pavements looked like scurrying ants.
Look at all those people, she thought. All those people going about their business, oblivious to the fact that there’s a crazy woman watching them from the thirteenth floor of an office block…
A stationary figure on the far pavement caught her eye and her blood ran cold.
“Doctor,” she whispered. “Come here.”
“What is it Casey?”
Casey stared at the figure in the street. He was tall.
He’s too tall...
He was almost twice as tall as everybody else.
She stared hard at the man and it was like he was staring back right at her.
But he can’t be, I’m too high up and these windows are tinted…
Even though it seemed as if he was staring at her it was impossible to tell for sure as his features were inexplicably shrouded in darkness, despite the bright, wintry sunshine. He wore a dark suit and his long, skinny arms dangled by his sides.
“Do you see him?” she asked Dr Everett who had come up behind her.
“See what?”
People streamed round the stationary figure like water around a rock. Some even seemed to walk through him.
“See what Casey?” he asked again.
“Him.”
“Him? Who is him?”
But Casey couldn’t answer. The man lifted his arms.
She actually felt something in her head go crunch, like her mind was closing in on itself in terror.
His arms are so long. So so long…
His arms stretched upwards.
Stretching towards her.
And still they kept on stretching. His arms were lengthening. They extended up through the sky, long and thin and stretched as taut as pylon wires.
Casey watched the spectacle with disbelieving eyes.
Only when his fingers tapped on the window did her paralysis break.
She screamed and stumbled backwards, falling against Dr Everett who grabbed her under her elbows to steady her.
She lurched past him, her mind fogged with pure fear.
Dr Everett was behind her immediately, grabbing hold of her and spinning her around to face him.
“Casey? What did you see? What’s happening?”
She was hyperventilating, she couldn’t stop.
A stinging slap across her face brought her back to her senses. Her eyes locked with his; hers wild and staring, his calm and searching.
She peered round his shoulder to look at the window.
There was nothing there.
“He was at the window,” she whispered.
Dr Everett twisted his head to look. “There is nothing or nobody at the window, Casey.”
She dul
y noted the calmness of his voice, like he was talking to a brain-damaged child.
“He was there.”
“There’s no one there, you know this. How could anyone be at the window? It’s impossible.” He walked over to the window. “Come here and look with me.”
Her stomach clenched in fear.
“No, please, don’t. It’s the Slender Man, you have to ignore him. If you acknowledge him and seek him out it makes him stronger…Oh God.”
She sobbed, knowing how crazy she sounded.
But what if she wasn’t mad? What if Slender Man was real?
“Casey. You are having an episode, you need to come over here right now…”
His words were cut short by the almighty crash of the window imploding. Glass exploded in Dr Everett’s face, knocking him to the floor.
His face was instantly transformed into a mask of red gashes. He stared imploringly up at her and gripped his neck, blood spilling through his fingers and running down the sleeve of his suit.
He sat in an ever increasing puddle of his own blood, looking as shocked and confused as Casey felt.
The hands at his throat were doing little to stem the gushing tide of red. He made a final, wet gargling sound and flopped backwards, arms flung high above his head like a sleeping child.
On shaking legs, Casey took a step towards the spot where he lay. Blood kissed the toe of her court shoe and she recoiled.
“Dr Everett?” she whispered. “Oh Jesus.”
She turned away and bent double, stomach bile floating her tongue and tears stinging her eyes. She dry heaved twice, then straightened up.
Dr Everett was dead, and if she didn’t leave now, then she would be too.
She made for the door. Just as she was about to turn the handle, something dark within her compelled her to turn around.
She knew what she would see at the window before she even saw it.
Two hands with abnormally long, thin fingers curled over the jagged edge of the window sill.
She didn’t hang around to see what would happen next.
“Are you OK?” Dr Everett’s secretary asked from her pristine white desk when she stumbled into the reception area.
