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.
“Jason had a court date this morning that he missed, even his parents showed up. They assumed he was with a friend,” he continues. Well that's what you get when you don't raise your kids right.
“It just so happens, that Mario Douglas was reported missing from the hospital around three in the morning last night. The hospital staff say Mario was about to be released as he had some relatives ready to take care of him, but he disappeared,” he says.
“So you think Jason and the others had something to do with this?” I ask.
“Yes, and we're hoping maybe you've seen any of these kids? Jason is the only one in your grade, but do you recognize the other two?” he asks. He shows me pictures of Jason and two girls that look a little older than me. There is a fourth picture in his hand, but it's of a chubby boy that looks like he might be in the fourth or fifth grade. Jason looks like the only one that would be interested in murdering Mr. Mario, but I guess you can't judge people by their pictures.
“I'm sorry, Jason is the only one I recognize, and I haven't seen him since yesterday when…” I stop. Jason said he was going to help Kenny! “He told me he was seeing his brother,” I say.
“You mean like…”
“Like he saw his brother in class, and he said that his brother needed his help. He told me that he was going to help him,” I explain.
“Wait, so are you two close? No one I've spoken to has said anything about this,” he says.
“No, he- he thought I saw Kenny too because I jumped up in fright from a- a spider. He must have 'seen' Kenny at the same time. He was very aggressive about it. You can ask my Dad.”
He raises his hand to stop me. “I believe you. He's not the only one that's reported seeing things and that story about adds up,” he says.
“It does?” I ask.
“A few people said they last saw him talking to you, and everyone that's seen him says they last saw him at school yesterday. If he left school planning on helping Kenny, then he might have gathered some followers and planned to sneak into the hospital. It all adds up, we just don't have proof that he's responsible. If you see him, or any of these kids,” he says, waving the photos. “...let me know.”
“Right, will-do,” I say. I hear the bell ring.
“Better run along,” says Deputy Yew, but it looks like he's saying it more to himself than to me. I thank him, although I'm not sure what exactly I was thanking him for-information? I shrug it off and head into the school. I get to my classroom as quickly as I can. Before Ms. Alder can greet me with “Glad you could join us,” I say, “Sorry was giving information to the deputy.”
Ms. Alder looks up at me, and I hand the essays.
“Oh,” she says, a little surprised that I- well, Shana, followed through.
“Well, glad you could join us, please take your seat.” I wince at those words. I don't know why, but I have this pet peeve where if someone has a certain catchphrase or something they always say, I hate being the one to trigger it. School goes by far too slowly. There's no Dad to bust me out before lunch period. Heck he's probably catching up on the work he missed out on yesterday, whatever vice principals do.
The whole school day I have my mind on what Jason could be doing to Mario right now, and why those other students would help him, if they were helping him. Are they torturing him, or disposing of his body? Those kinds of questions run through my mind incessantly. When the final bell rings, another bell dings in my head. Time for Shana! I realize I haven't told my parents that I plan to go see Shana early today, so I go over to the vice principal's office. The door's open so I walk in, on Ms. Alder talking to my Dad, with our essays in hand.
“Oh, Alyssa,” greets Dad, and his tone isn't happy sounding.
“What's going on?” I ask.
Ms. Alder gives me a small apologetic smile. “I've just been going over your essays with your father,” she explains.
“What's wrong with them?” I ask, although I already know what she's going to say. “Well they…” but she stops and gives my Dad a look. Wow, she can come behind my back and talk about these essays but she won't say it to my face?
“I haven't, read the essays completely Alyssa, but Ms. Alder believes the theme of these essays written by both of you are, well it doesn't seem like two people wrote them,” he explains.
So wait, they weren't worried about the style, they just aren't fooled by Shana's trick?
“Well we worked together on them. Like I said yesterday, we were going to use the same event to-”
“Yesterday Alyssa, you hadn't even started your essay, so that means you both would have to have put all of this work into it in one night,” she says.
“In one visit that lasted barely more than an hour, and most of that hour was spent on dinner,” corrects my Dad.
“So? What business of yours is it to go over and…” I try, but Ms. Alder interrupts.
“What's the name of the man you were reluctantly arrested by in this essay?” she asks. I hesitate, because I don't know the answer to the question off the top of my head. Wasn't it Turnpin? No wait.
“Turpin?” I ask, although I probably should have declared it.
“That's the name of the judge Alyssa,” she says.
“Did Shana write these essays?” asks Dad. He's glaring at me, clearly not ready for any more lies. I just give him a look that says yes, but without fully admitting it. He sighs angrily and rubs his forehead, although you can tell he already knew the truth before I came in.
“This worries me though, the implications here,” she continues to my father.
“What implications? They're just essays,” I protest. So not only are they not fooled, they are worried about Shana now.
“Alyssa, if you actually bothered to read a single one of the seven pages of this essay,” Dad says snidely, “...then you would be worried about your friend too.” He doesn’t know this, but I am worried about Shana.
“We need to bring this up with her parents. Maybe get her to a psychiatrist,” suggests Ms. Alder.
“She doesn't need a shrink, she's just... venting!” I yell.
“Alyssa!” shouts Dad. “Go home,” he says.
I am about to turn around before I realize that I had a reason for coming in here.
“Dad, I need to see Shana. I told- I promised I'd head straight for her house right after school,” I say.
“Well that's not going to happen young la- little girl,” he says, correcting himself with the term little girl in order to condescend toward me, and it's working.
“You're lucky if we even take you with us tonight after your Mom finds out about your irresponsibility. Now get out of my face,” he continues.
I shrug, with a few tears about to fall. There are a lot of things I want to say, but when my Dad gets like this, he won't hear any of it.
“Probably already missed the bus,” I choke.
“Oh, well I can give her a ride,” suggests Ms. Alder, but I cut her a hateful glare. The last th
ing I want to do is accept a ride from the woman who just sold me out.
“Fine then, walk. Call me- from home, in one hour. When you get home put your cell phone on my desk,” says Dad. I storm out of the office, and slam it behind me. Some help he is. I walk down the almost empty hallway, barely able to contain my anger as I exit the school. I head to the forest line, but then stop. My hair is down, and I don't have anything to contain it with, plus I'm wearing a skirt and some Chucks, and have no water. I'm in no position to run, or even jog comfortably, and he expects me to be home in an hour. I sigh and move on. Let's hope I can walk through a few miles of woods and get home inside an hour.
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.
8: The Disappearance
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.
“I'm sorry, I tried to come earlier but,” I start, but she isn't making eye contact. It's as if she's hardly aware that I'm here. “Is she on any medication?” I ask Mr. Hawthorn. He sighs.
“None that would do this. It's Denise, she keeps mumbling her name. I think maybe she blames herself and it's setting in. We are taking her to see a doctor after the shivah,” he explains.
“Well why not now? She's, it’s like she's catatonic,” I protest.
“Now Alyssa, this is none of your business. You let them handle Shana and we'll handle you,” says Dad. I grind my teeth together. Shana needs help now, and she might not be this way if I’d arrived this afternoon.
“We should get dinner set,” says Mom. She and Mrs. Hawthorn head down into the kitchen. Mr. Hawthorn goes back after them. Dad starts to go in.
“Come on,” he demands.
“We shouldn't leave her alone,” I say, taking her hand and trying to draw a response from her.
“Now, Alyssa,” he demands again. Every time he snaps at me my mind flashes to Ms. Alder. I want to slap her, probably just as Dad wants to slap me. I get up and pull on Shana's hand. Slowly, she begins to rise up. She gets on her feet and slowly turns her head in my direction, but she's looking through me. Her demeanor oddly reminds me of Adam's behavior when we caught him wandering through the road last night. With me pulling her hand, she follows. Dad at least doesn't stop me from guiding Shana. He may be irritated with me for the essays, but even he can't deny that something is wrong with Shana, and something that clearly can't wait until Wednesday. I seriously hope they say something during dinner.
The Slender Man Page 6
