Slender: Entry 4

27/22/12

It was a mistake, going to Sarah's house. I'm never going back.

It was dark by the time I pulled up in front of her small, terraced house - I'd given Sarah a lift home before, but I'd never been further than the front door. The wind was picking up and a light drizzle hung in the damp evening air. Staring at the yawning black windows, like glazed and unseeing eyes, it had taken me a good five minutes to convince myself to even get out of the car. Eventually I had crossed the deserted street and knocked on the peeling blue paint of the front door. I waited, then knocked again. There was no answer. I tried peering through the letterbox but it was so dark inside the hallway that I couldn't see anything.

I had Sarah's keys - I had taken them from her discarded bag - so I decided to let myself in. I needed to know what had happened to her. There was a newspaper and post still on the doormat from the previous morning. I flicked the light switch to no avail - maybe a fuse had blown?

I pulled my phone from my pocket and used the camera flash as a makeshift torch. Sarah's house was in a state of disarray - the sofa had been upended and the cushions were scattered around the lounge. The small kitchen/diner was untidy, a pile of dirty washing-up towered out of the sink and sprawled across the kitchen counter. There was no sign of Sarah. I called her name; it echoed in the empty house.

There was nothing for it - I'd have to check upstairs too. The bathroom and spare bedroom yielded no clues, but what I found in Sarah's room was very unnerving. Her bed was unmade and there were clothes kicked into an untidy pile in one corner. The wardrobe was open and had spilled its contents into the bedroom floor. One wall was covered in drawings. Strange, disturbing drawings of a tall, thin, faceless creature, and a symbol, a circle with an 'x' scratched through it. In between the sketches there were non-sensical refrains, scrawled in Sarah's tiny handwriting: "always watching", "don't look", and "forget what you saw". I was in the process of stuffing these pictures into my coat pocket when I heard a noise downstairs.

"Sarah...?" I called, but received no reply.

Holding my makeshift torch in front of me, I crept back down the narrow flight of stairs and through to the kitchen.

The back door was open, swinging gently in the breeze.

It hadn't been open before.

I peered into the small, tree-lined garden, squinting, trying to penetrate the gloom.

That's when I saw him.

Between two trees, watching, still, menacing. Inhumanly tall and thin, with elongated arms and a pale, featureless face.

Oh god, the face.

I see it every time I close my eyes. That perfectly, empty oval, hideous and incomprehensible.

I wanted to run but my legs didn't seem to be getting the message. The Slender Man advanced; just one, unnatural step towards me. Holding back a scream I willed myself to move, to do anything, to get away. I turned and ran, through the house and out of the front door, leaving it flapping behind me. I did not dare to look back.

I reached my car and drove, wheels spinning, engine over-revving, out of Sarah's street and home.

I thought I'd be safe at home.

I was wrong.