GOOD BYE, BLOG THING.

   I've seen him. SEEN him

   He took her and she's with him now. With them. THAT BASTARD TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!

   They were right where I knew they would be. YOU knew they would be there too, Blog thing. You were always smart like that.

   They were right there in the woods. Right in the same clearing where he had displayed Steve & Cynthia. Did I tell you he had placed them facing each other? Yep, even in death they couldn't stop gawking at each other, heh. I fucking saw him! Really saw him! Holy shit holy shit I gotta keep it together. Gotta finish this. Why the fuck do I have to finish this, Blog thing? What the fuck? 

   Keep it together, Tommy boy… Yeah I’m cool. Everything’s fine, I’m just a guy writing on the Blog thing, see? You’re my center, Blog thing. You’re a brick.

   He was standing there - easily 9 feet tall. She was standing in front of him facing me and he had his hands on her shoulder, much the way a parent would with their child. Child... kids. OH GOD all those children. They were THERE! standing among the trees, just watching. watching with their little empty eyes. Watching us. Watching HIM. SEEING HIM! No, gotta keep centered. Hold on to my mind. gotta finish this. You have to know, Blog thing. I need to tell you this.

   I called to her, but she just stood there, staring right through me, like in a trance. Sure, like a magician. He's a magician and she's his assistant. Presto change-o, don't look away-o! Keepin it together, see?

   I didn't look away. I couldn't move. I could hardly breath.

   And then the magic man applied his trade. A thing... tentacle, whatever suddenly appeared from behind his back. It came to a wicked looking point and it glided gracefully over his shoulder and arched downward toward Steph.

   I knew what he was about to do, and I knew that he had her positioned so that I would see the whole thing.

   The tentacle paused briefly in front of Steph's chest and then drew back slightly. I started screaming. I was begging for him to stop.

   He didn't give me time to get the first word out. Sick fuck SICK FUCK!

   That tentacle flicked at Steph and then withdrew. It was fast enough that her hair fluttered slightly. She didn't even flinch.

   I was about to scream again. How long was he going to continue to play these games? He cocked his head slightly as though he could read my mind, and then, as if in rebuttal to my mental question, Steph's shirt fell open.

   It had been a perfectly clean cut right through the fabric... of both shirt and woman. My query over Cynthia's PJ's was answered as the red line suddenly appeared trailing from the base of Steph's neck down past her navel. As the line became a trickle of blood, the Slender Man's hands, which were still resting on Steph's shoulders, were now a second pair of hands, which reached down over her wound. He forced his long fingers into the cut where it bisected her chest and pulled, opening my beautiful girlfriend's torso, ribs popping as they spread.

   Again she never flinched, my Steph. My Steph.

   Numerous tentacles now unfolded from the magician's back like the tail of a peacock. Some ended in chitinous claws, some human-esque hands, others tipped similarly to the one that opened up the woman I love. They all went into action - a flurry of motion as he began to systematically dissect my love.

   A hand would reach in and single out an organ while a cutting tentacle would flick at it, cutting it free. Then from seemingly nowhere another tentacle would appear with a plastic bag, wrap the organ carefully, but efficiently, and then place it back into the body cavity. Tentacles swarmed over my darling Steph yet they never completely blocked my view. He wanted to be sure I saw everything.

   The tentacles removed, wrapped, and replaced every organ, finishing with the heart - which was still beating at the time that tentacle flicked at it, cutting it free of her body. The whole thing took less than a minute.. The most amazing woman I have ever known was cleaned out and neatly packaged before she was even dead.

   And she never flinched.

   As his tentacles withdrew again, one of the remaining cutters whipped out, taking the end off of a tree branch roughly fifteen feet off the ground, leaving it wickedly pointed. The Slender Man gently lifted my Steph off the ground, poised her over the prepared branch, and smoothly impaled her upon it.

   I don't know if it was dying nerves or reflexes or her life finally leaving her, but at the instant the branch slid into her back, she flinched.

   I snapped back to what, reality? For the briefest of moments - just long enough to look down and see the homemade grenade I was holding in my hand. The weapon designed to burn hot enough to melt metal flesh bone and rock, hot enough to burn underwater. Hot enough to fell mighty Cthulhu?

   I pulled the pin and threw. He was still admiring his work when the grenade him in the shoulder. There was a pop and a sound like a phone book being torn in half. A new star bloomed for a second where the Slender Man had been. I shielded myself from the indescribable light and heat of it, and as the light started to fade I could still see... him... it... the horror... at the center of the conflagration .

The      facade      had         slipped

   I saw him. His true nature. I caught the fucker off guard and for an instant of an instant he was revealed to me.

   Or was it the facade beneath the facade? How many masks do they wear, the gods of men?

   I SAW him, don't you understand? If I plucked my eyes free of my head I could never undo this.

   I'm screaming. I'm screaming as I write this. Have been since I ran from the fire. Can't seem to stop.

   Burnt the woods down. Burning out of control now. Sorry about that. Didn't help. He's coming anyway.

   Don't want to see this in my head anymore. Don't want to see him in my head. Don’t want to see that.

   So sorry Steph my Steph I loved you I failed you. He's here, Blog thing. Outside. He's waiting for me. For my embrace. He’s waiting. I made him angry but still he’s patient. He knows. He knows he will win so he waits and he watches. He’s watching me now I can feel him.

   I'll go to him. Don't want this anymore. One grenade left. Maybe I'll use it. Maybe I’ll walk right into his arms with the pin pulled. Maybe I won't. She never flinched. I don't want to flinch. Just want to end. Just want to end. Just want it to end. No more sleep. No more dreams. No more dreams. No more sleep.

   Sleep, those little slices of death. Oh, how I loathe them.

ENDGAME

   Steph's not answering her phone. She's not at her place or at Steve & Cynthia's.

   That son of a bitch got her. I know it. I can feel him laughing at me. That's fine. I know where he has her.

   I only had time enough to make two grenades. No time to test the detonators. I hope they work. I hope it's enough.

SCIENCE LESSONS

   My arm feels like it's about to fall off.

   Did all the reading on our skinny friend that I could. Seems no one knows how to kill it. It's some kind of spirit/ancient evil/godlike power type of thing... Cthulhu fhtagn my ass.

   Well we'll see how untouchable he is. Been doing some reading on some other things as well. Hey, Blog thing, did you know that Thermite burns at over FOUR THOUSAND degrees? See how impressed I was? I even spelled out 4,000.

   Did you also know that thermite is surprisingly easy to produce? Yes sir, Blog thing. I've been very busy today.

   Shit. Been so busy I forgot to tell Steph to get out of town.

SLENDER MAN

   I know what it is now. And it knows that I know.

   It's almost funny how easy it was to find. I just typed in "tall thin man in suit no face" and that was that. Site after site describing exactly what I've been encountering and refering to it by the same name:

   The Slender Man

   According to the internet he doesn't exist. I even traced back to the original forum thing where he was "created"... saw all the doctored pictures. Some of them were really pretty close to real, but they all confirmed that he was just some creepy figment of someone's particularly vivid imagination.

   I'm being stalked by something that doesn't exist. How funny is that? In fact I even almost laughed when I looked up and saw him standing over me.


   Up until now I had only seen him from a distance. Let me tell you, Blog thing, up close is a whole other universe. His suit is actually rather nicely taylored. It's not really black and it's not really grey. It's really more of an intricate black and grey pattern, like a herringbone but not really. I've never seen a pattern like it. Beneath the suit jacket is a very pristine white shirt - wouldn't surprise me if it was made of spider silk or some exotic shit like that. Topping it all off, a blood tie. It literally looked like it was made out of blood. It was such a rich, deep, dark red that it was almost black, glistening like no silk or satin I've ever seen.

   That was the outfit... then there was the costume. At least that's what its skin looked like. Jaundiced pale yellowish... dead looking skin stretched over something it wasn't made for. There was definite structure under that face.... lack of face...  but the skin just didn't seem to fit right. Like inside it was something entirely different from the outside. It's hard to explain.

   And then there were those creepy movements like in my dream. It's like this whole thing's presence is a facade. Like underneath is something even more intangible. Even more deadly.

   The words were halfway out of my mouth before I realized I was even saying them:

   "Slender Man."

   I swear if it had eyes it would have winked at me, judging by the way it dipped it's head in response.

   My head's already pretty fucked up with everything going on and I gotta tell you, at this point tears are streaming down my face and I swear I'm about to lose everything I've ever eaten in my life. I scream at it.

   "What do you want?"

   You know what that fucker does then? He stretches out those ridiculous arms like he wants a hug. What's even crazier? I almost give him one! It's like I want to just go to him and let him wrap those long arms (not arms) around me and then everything will be okay.

   I even catch myself taking a step forward when out of nowhere a question pops into my head:

   Is this how it was for Steve and Cynthia? For all those kids? Is this how he lured them away? Away into the trees?

   I turned and ran out of the apartment - screaming like a lunatic.

   I know Slender Man is real. I think he entered the popular culture because he's kind of hardwired into our psyche, like a sort of instinctual understanding of what's really lurking in the dark. I personally think he's always been out there, but if somehow you've all managed to create him with all of your pictures and stories and cartoons, then fuck you.

   Fuck you all for what you brought into this world.

DISCOVERIES

   I was driving back to my apartment and I saw him again. In the same fucking place in the woods. I was done with all This fucking around, so I slammed on my brakes and got out of the car. The fucker was gone, but I went in after him.

   I got maybe 5 feet in and saw the sunlight reflecting red off of a car's tail lights. The car was in just far enough so that it wasn't visible from the road. My blood was up. I was gonna drag that guy out of his car and beat the ever loving shit out of him.

   So I charged in, already spouting a few choice phrases.... he wasn't in the car. And I knew why. It was Steve's car.

   I immediately called the cops. Other than looking in the windows I didn't want to touch the car. I've seen too many cop shows. Wasn't about to disturb a crime scene.

   I knew I had between 5 and 10 minutes before the cops showed, so I backed away from the car (crimescene) and started to kind of wander around while listening for those sirens.

   This is fucking hard for me to write, Blog thing. I don't even really know why I am. I kind of need to, I guess.

   I fucking found them, Blog thing.

   I was walking around the trees, waiting for the cops. Should have just waited by the car. Something wet splatted on my head. Thought a fucking bird had bombed me. Wiped my head while ducking away and looking up at the same time.

   I didn't even register what I was seeing until I looked back down at my hand and saw the red...

   Blood. Cynthia's fucking blood...

   She was 15, maybe 20 feet up. Her feet were caked in dirt and blood. That's what I saw first. The little details. I'll never forget the little details. They're permanently carved on my brain, like that shit on my door. Her PJ's looked like they'd been cut open. The buttons were still in the loops, attached to a thin strip of fabric that had been cut away from the rest. Her chest... God help me her entire front was sliced up the middle - I stood there staring at it. The first real thought I would have when my brain started working again was wondering if the slice up her belly and chest matched the cut on her PJ's... how fucked up is that???

   Her ribs were separated by the jagged tree branch poking out between them from behind. She'd been sliced open and then impaled on a branch a good 20 feet up. Who would do that? HOW THE FUCK DOES SOMEONE DO THAT?

   Something snapped in my head and suddenly I was feeling very vulnerable out there in the woods and needed to get out of there. I turned to run and that's when I saw Steve. He was already starting to change colors, but I knew it was him. My best fucking friend and his wife, gutted and hung up like fucking slaughtered pigs.

   I completely lost it. Next thing I remember I'm sitting on the curb by my car and some cop is putting a blanket around me. Why the fuck do cops always wrap people up in blankets, anyway?

   I don't know how they are going to get them down. The hook and ladder was too big to back into the woods. I heard something about a cherry picker but I don't know.

   Someone said there was something unusual about the condition of the bodies... you mean besides them being impaled on tree branches? I don't know what they were talking about. One cop with a high powered flashlight saw what he thought was plastic in their body cavities.

   Isn't it amazing what cops will say in front of you when they think you're catatonic?

   I couldn't tell them what I saw... What I have been seeing. No one would believe me. I need to know who/ what this fuck knuckle is and how to kill his fuckin evil no-face havin ass.

   You've helped me with everything else, internet. Help me now.

CYNTHIA

Cynthia’s gone.

Steph woke me up around 7 this morning. Cynthia wasn’t anywhere in the house. The car is still in the driveway and it doesn’t look like any of her clothes were taken. Seems she got up and just left the house in her pj’s at some time in the night.

Steph was even sharing the bed with her and she never heard her get up. She’s afraid that with the condition Cynthia’s been in, she might do something stupid.

The police got right on looking for Cynthia, since Steve is already missing.

I’m thinking Cynthia had nothing to do with her disappearance. Just too many damned coincidences.

Is it really no-face Jack Skellington? Or am I just completely bat shit crazy?

You know the weirdest thing? I think I nodded off around midnight. I slept through till 7 with no interruptions. Not 1 dream.

GHOSTS & GOBLINS

   Some shit’s goin on, but I don’t think it’s just me bein’ crazy anymore.

   I hope.

   New news on the net about another missing kid. This time the article points out similarities to a rash of child disappearances 15 years ago.

   I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep or what, but ever since I heard about that kid describing Jack Skellington, I’m thinking those abductions and what’s going on with me has gotta be connected somehow… So I do some searching on Cynthia's computer about the older case.

   Same situation - kids go missing in broad daylight. No suspects seen. One site had pictures of all the kids…

   Wednesday and Pugsley, Blog thing. Right there on that page. They were the last two victims. Brother and sister. Aged  7 and 8 at the time of their disappearances - 15 years ago!

   Ghosts, Blog thing? Am I really seeing fucking ghosts? Can ghosts carve crazy shit on a door? How can it be the same kids? They would be graduating college by now!

   There’s some hardcore Twilight Zone shit going on here. I’m about ready to freak the fuck out right here in Cynthia’s living room… again!

   No…no… I’m cool. I’m cool…. Dammit…