********************
Kate looks at Willis. The tears that welled in her eyes fall down her cheeks. ‘What happened to Celeste?’ she asks.
Willis shrugs his shoulders, “No one knows for sure. Some say she was raised by a one eyed priest and eventually went into the monastery. Some say she lived as a slave for one of the men that killed Arthur and killed herself in her teens by walking into a lake.
But I do remember reading an article in the library’s archive about a woman mortician who furthered techniques for preparing the dead. They say she made the bodies look as though they were still breathing.’
‘Ok, wait a second.’ Simon says, ‘Cement is made from crushed stones and water. Are you saying the filled his head with cement and threw him off a boat?’
Willis nods. Simon starts looking at the ceiling, ‘If that’s true, that weird orb shaped thing we saw in the pictures was him. But why would he be in pictures? And why would he disappear right after seeing him?’
Willis takes a brown sheet of paper with tattered edges from his pocket, ‘Pictures are used to hold memories that may fleet from our minds. What better way to preserve a constant reminder than in a picture.
You may fear what you see, you may be frighten of what you saw, but what you think you may have seen will haunt you.’
Willis takes the tattered paper and inspects it. ‘He came after me when I was in my late 20’s. Before me, my father was killed when I was a baby. The ages of his victims are getting younger and younger. He’s getting more proficient at killing off these bloodlines.’
He slides the paper through the bars of the cell. Kate takes the paper from Willis’ hand, ‘What’s this?’
Willis points through the bars ‘Open it up.’ Kate carefully unfolds the deterioration paper and sees a couple dozen names written. Some are scratched off, some are not. She looks down the paper and sees the name “Nowak” scratched out.
‘Oh my God, that’s Jessica!’ she gasps. She looks further down the paper. She sees the names “Sutter” and “Overton” also scratched off. She shows the paper to Simon, “Look, that’s Donovan and Rachael.”
Simon takes the paper, ‘I don’t get it. Why is he targeting people that did nothing to him?’ ‘Sins of the father are passed down to the son.’ Willis replies.
Kate begins pacing back and forth in the station. She stops and sits, holding her head in her hand, ‘So why do we have to do something about this? I looked through that list, there is no one else on there I know and I shouldn’t have to feel responsible for what someone’s ancestors did 100 years ago.’ She says frustrated.
Simon hands the paper back to Kate. His thumb firmly planted by a name, ‘You obviously didn’t look hard enough.’
Kate feels a shock run through her body.
“Pilsner”
Simon nods, ‘I guess I’m next in line.’ Kate looks over the list again. She furiously scrolls her finger down the page. ‘But why would you be in here. You’re not from here. This has to be a mistake.’
Simon takes a cup from the desk and walks to the water cooler as Kate meticulously scans the paper.
‘Maybe it’s a misspelling.’ She says to herself. She flips the paper over. The faded colors and shapes of flowers decorate the border of the paper. In the middle of the page, a tall stickman holds the hand of a smaller stickgirl.
As she gazes at the picture, her eyes move down to the lower left corner, where she sees one more name written that isn’t scratched out, Celeste.
Kate looks up at Willis, ‘What can we do to stop this?’ Willis removes his hands from the bars, ‘He has to return to the beginning. Sometimes that is the only way you can start over.’
Kate rises from her seat. Willis takes a step backwards.
Kate folds the paper and puts it in her pocket, ‘You said something about a lake surrounded by Birch trees. You’re talking about Birch Lake right? I know where that place is. It’s about 10 minutes from here.’
Willis nods his head. He takes another step back.
‘So’ Kate says, ‘if he goes into the lake, it’s over, right?’ Willis takes another step back into the dark cell, ‘That list is very important. Keep it safe and let no one else know it exist. Those names on the list, find those names and look after them.’
Kate begins to look around the desk. She begins exploring through its drawers, ‘There has to be a key to that door around here somewhere. Simon! Can you pick the lock to this door?’
Simon takes a sip of water from his cup, ‘Why?’
Kate stops, ‘Because we have to get Willis out of there. We can’t let him stay in there, he didn’t do anything wrong.’
Willis takes another step back as the darkness of the cell blankets him, ‘I’ve done all I can do. This is what must happen. Kate, you were right. I’m just a crazy old man. And this crazy old man can only give you one more thing.’
Kate walks over to the cell, ‘And what’s that?’
The sounds of Willis’ footsteps cease. Willis takes a deep breath, ‘Time.’
The top window of the cell breaks as two pale white hands crash through the glass. The pale hands wrap around Willis’ neck and lift him off the ground. Willis kicks violently against the wall with the soles of his feet as the panicked thumping echoes through the station.
Simon drops the cup and run to Kate. He grabs her arm, ‘C’mon we have to go!’ Kate reaches out and clutches the bars of the cell, ‘We can’t just leave him. Get something to break the lock!’
Simon Places his hands on Kate’s cheeks, ‘Listen to me. There is nothing we can do for him. We have to go!’
Simon flings the door open and dashes out. Kate looks back. She hears the gargling and thumping coming from Willis cell. She thinks back to something her Grandfather once told her years ago when she was a small girl,
‘Sometimes it’s the least of us that holds more value.’
Chapter 18
The tranquil quiet of the street outside the police station is shattered when Simon burst through the door and stumbles on the sidewalk.
He quickly gets to his feet and hold the door open for Kate, ‘C’mon, we got to get out of here.’ Kate runs out of the police station and slams the door shut behind her. ‘What are we going to do now?’ she asks Simon.
Simon begins to look around the street, ‘We need to get to that lake right? If it’s only 15 minutes away, we can run there.’ ‘No, it’s 15 minutes by car,’ Kate replies, ‘it would take us at least 45 minutes by foot.’
Simon urgently begins walking down the street. He starts to pull the door handles of the cars parked along the sidewalk.
The first car door he tries is locked.
He moves swiftly to the next car. Kate looks at Simon puzzled, ‘What are you doing?’ Simon continues to pull the handles, ‘If we need a car, we better take one of these.’ ‘But Simon,’ ‘Kate says, ‘I doubt any of these cars have the keys in them.’
Simon moves to the next car and tugs on the handle, ‘I can hotwire it if we can find one that’s open. And if we can’t, we’re going to have to smash a window.’
Kate looks along the street. She sees an old rusted blue work van with its window rolled halfway down. She hastily runs over to the van and tried the door.
Locked.
She sticks her arm through the small opening of the window and reaches for the lock inside the car door. She slides her arm inside the semi opened window up to her elbow and reaches downward toward the lock. ‘Not even close.’ She says to herself.
She looks around and sees Simon still trying to open car doors. ‘Simon!’ she calls out ‘Come help me with this!’
Simon jogs across the street and sees the semi opened window of the van. ‘There is no way I can get my arm in that small space.’ he says. Kate reaches for the metal railing bolted to the roof of the van and pulls herself up. She rest her feet on the side of the van, ‘I can’t get all the way in without getting my arm stuck. So when I put my arm all the way in, jump
in and start the van and roll the window down.’
‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ Simon asks. Kate slips her arm in the window ‘There is no other way, just trust me on this.’
She winces as she squeezes her upper arm inside of the tight spot. Her fingers brush against the top grainy texture of the plastic peg near the top of the door. She squeezes her arm in further. Her hands stiffen as the tightness of the confined space cuts off the blood flow to her arm. ‘I almost got it.’ she tells Simon.
Simon surveys the street. He stands with the posture of a British Royal Guard. ‘I’m not trying to rush you or anything but…’
Kate’s fingernail catches the peg. She strains to pull the release mechanism. Inch by inch she wrenches the peg until she hears a light click. ‘Simon, go ahead, start the car.’
Simon sees Kate’s arm still stuck in the window. He pulls the handle and opens the door just enough to slide into the van. He ducks under the steering wheel and quickly gets to work. “This will only take a few seconds,’ he tells Kate, ‘just hang in there until I can get the car started and roll down the window.’
Simon crawls into the back of the van. The sound of metal clinking against the metal floor of the van peaks Kate’s interest.
‘What are you doing back there?’ she asks. The clinking continues as Kate patiently waits for Simons answer. He emerges from the back with 4 screwdrivers and a hammer in hand. He slides one of the screwdrivers in the keyhole of the van and begins hammering it inside. Kate watches intently remaining as quiet and as still as she can.
He grabs the end of the screwdriver and turns it. Nothing.
‘I’m going to have to take the panels off. This may take more than a few seconds. Hang in there.’
The pressure of the window has completely numbed Kate’s arm, ‘You say that like I have a choice.’ She says sarcastically.
The soft plinking of the screws hitting the rubber mat under the steering wheel and the cracking from Simon removing the plastic panels from the steering column is a reassuring sound to her ears.
A small gust of wind pushes through Kate’s hair, fluttering the strains of hair across her face. She feels the chill shock her body. Her stomach begins to churn. There is something familiar about this wind, almost as if she felt it before.
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ she says to herself, ‘you can’t recognize wind.’ But she can’t shake the twisting trembling in her gut.
She looks through the window and watches Simon fiddle and fumble around with the wires under the steering column. ‘Are you almost finished?’
Simon looks up, ‘This is a really old van. I’m not sure which wire goes with which. It’s gonna take me some time.’
Kate hears the faint sound of stone grinding against stone reverberating from behind the police station.
She hears the sound drag, then pause.
The unsettling noise of scraping continues. Drag...pause. Another gust of wind thrust into her body. She turns to look down the long, dimly lit alley that leads to the back of the police station. Everything is motionless.
‘I need to strip these wires.’ Simon tells Kate, ‘I’m going to the back to see if I can find a pair of wire strippers. Be right back.’
Kate turns her attention back to Simon, ‘Wait. Did you hear something?’ Simon shakes his head, ‘No. Why? What did you hear?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Kate answers, ‘like a crunching or a scratching sound.’ Simon steps between the seats and climbs in the back, ‘It was probably me you heard. I was trying to strip the wires off with the screwdriver. Be right back.’
Simon climbs between the seats and disappears into the back of the van.
The eerie, buzzing silence brings chills to Kate’s skin. With Simon not close by, she feels the vulnerability of an injured piece of prey waiting for a predator to pounce upon her.
‘Simon is almost finished,’ she says to herself reassuringly, ‘there is nothing to worry about. He’ll strip the wires, start the van, get my arm out and we’ll be on our way. Nothing to fear Kate, nothing to fear.’
She lowers the lids of her widened eyes. She takes deep controlled breaths. ‘Nothing to fear Kate.’ she whispers.
The grinding begins to echoes from the alley behind the police station once more. Kate’s heart starts to beat quickly. She realizes her newfound bravery was nothing but a fraudulent sense of self encouragement.
A long, narrow shadow sprawled across the ground of the alley starts to grow.
‘Simon!’ she yells. No response.
The shadow continues to grow and the grinding gets louder.
‘Simon!’ she yells again. She looks back at the shadow. It has stopped. She listens for the grinding. It has ceased. Kate starts to tug on her numbed arm, ‘Simon!’
The shadow reaches its arm around the corner of the building. Kate sees it white fingers. ‘Simon, get out here!’ she desperately screams.
Simon climbs through the back clutching the wire stripers, ‘Geez, what’s the problem? I said I’d be…’
He sees the long white fingers of the Creature sliding along the brick wall. He sees the moonlight reflecting from the gold buttons on its sleeve. Tingles crawl across his neck and face as he sees the outline of the Creatures body slowly standing, rising as tall as the building.
Kate furiously tries to yank her arm from the window. She sees the petrified look on Simons face. She begins to bang on the glass with the palm of her hand, ‘Simon! Simon start the car!’
Simon awakens from his dazed stare. He grabs a handful of wires and begins sorting through them. The rubber grips of the wire cutters slide around in his sweaty palm as he cuts the plastic casing from a group of red wires. He looks out the window and checks on Kate.
Kate is still trying to tug her arm free. She hears the Creature’s footstep gradually speed up. She looks behind her and sees the Creature’s wavering body hastily making its way down the alley. Its unsteady steps cause his long, sinister arms to sway back and forth. ‘Simon! You have to hurry!’
Simon digs through the tangled jungle of cords in search of the ignition cable. ‘It has to be here somewhere.’ he whispers to himself.
He reaches deeper into the hollowed steering column and feels a shock prick his finger. He peers in and sees the brown ignition wire frayed at the sides.
Simon quickly grabs the loose red wire and touches the exposed copper of the brown wire. A small spark lights the inside of the steering column. The engine struggles to turn over.
‘C’mon, start you rusty bastard.’ Simon says as he rubs the wires together. The engine begins to knock. The sound of metal clinking together trickles from under the hood as the whimpering of the engine fades in and out. ‘C’mon, c’mon’ he whispers to himself.
The engine begins to slowly throttle until it roars with power.
Simon hops into the driver seat. He looks out the window and sees the Creature’s arm rise toward the van. Its hand rears back and its fingers form a claw.
Simon looks around the door, ‘Kate, grab the window and hold on. I’m about to lower the window.’ The Creature begins to launch its claw at Kate.
‘Forget the window!’ Kate yells, ‘Just drive!’
Simon pulls the shifting gear into drive. He smashes his foot on the gas pedal. The van accelerates forward as the Creature swipes at the side of the van. Its fingers scratching through the metal of the vehicle causing sparks as it just misses Kate.
Simon presses on the gas pedal harder. The force throws Kate against the side of the van, ferociously banging her shoulder on the hard steel of the door.
Simon looks in the rearview mirror and sees the Creature chasing the van. He then looks over at Kate, clinging for dear life outside the window. ‘Should I stop?’ he asks. ‘No’ Kate replies, ‘just pull me in!’
Simon grabs Kate’s arm. He drapes his free forearm across the steering wheel to keep the van driving in a straight line. He carefully lowers the window and grabs Kate’s belt, hauling he
r into the van.
Kate quickly climbs across Simon’s lap and crumbles from exhaustion into the passenger seat.
She looks into the rearview mirror. The desolate, misty road behind them shows no sign of the creature.
‘Do you think he’ll follow us?’ Kate says between exhausted breaths.
Simon turns the van down a dirt road, ‘He has to. The question is, what are we going to do after he finds us.’
Kate turns around in her seat and looks into the back of the van. Piles of carpenter’s tools and equipment fill its floor and makeshift shelves.
The Slender Man Game of Myths Page 17
