Slenderman Stories

Knock in the Night

It is incredibly hot where I live during the summer. No one leaves the air-conditioned paradise that is their home unless they absolutely have to. Watching the news one night the weatherman speaking in his usual drone informed us that there was a heat wave incoming and that it would be even hotter than it normally is over the weekend.

"Oh hell no," my husband says to me, clearly irritated. "Well, why don't we go to my grandpa's cabin Friday night to avoid it?" I replied.

He definitely liked the idea. My grandfather gave us his permission to go up there for the weekend, just asking that we do a few things to help him keep it cleaned up and do some fire hazard reduction for him. We agreed, looking forward to a weekend alone and out of the heat. Thursday evening we pick up the keys from him and pack up our truck to leave early in the morning. Friday morning we're headed up there and stop in a small town at the base of the mountain to get some gas and snacks. We're standing outside the truck, eating push pops, waiting for the gas to pump when my husband smiles at me wryly.

"Don't you dare." I say, knowing full well what is about to come out of his mouth.

He starts chuckling between licks of his push pop and whispers in my ear, "SLENDERMAN. HAHAHA. SLEEEEENDY IS WAITING FOR YOU UP THERE." "

You're hilarious," I reply sarcastically. If only.

We reach the cabin and get the lights and water going. Take our bags and the groceries in. It's a little chilly, so I decide to grab some firewood from the back while he finishes unloading the truck. I stop abruptly at the side of the house, as I notice some scratch marks. Long, thin, and going along the side like someone was dragging a rake almost while walking along. Those weren't there last time I was here, but it had been a very long time since I had been there, so I shook my head and continued on to the back to grab a few logs. The rest of the day goes by without incident. We go fishing, ride the ATVs, make some s'mores. We're sitting comfortably, cuddling on the sofa, flipping through channels on whatever the rabbit ears on the TV will pick up when we hear scratching and knocking along the side of the house. My husband must have felt me tense up because he immediately says, "It's probably rats."

I look at him and say, "Are you fucking kidding me? Rats? No way."

The sound suddenly stops and doesn't start up again, so after an hour or so we go to bed. The next morning I go outside to grab more firewood. Curiosity gets the better of me and I decide to go look on the side of the cabin where I heard the banging and what I see immediately makes me want to puke. Sure, the sound was rats. Being nailed. To the wall. There are half-eaten rat carcasses all over the wall, surrounded by those same scratch marks that I had seen the day before. That was enough for me. I start yelling for my husband to show him.

"Woaah, that's messed up," he says when I show him.

"I want to leave. Like, today. I don't want to stay another night."

He makes another joke about Slenderman and tells me we'll be fine. "If it makes you feel safer, we'll shut all the window and door coverings."

The cabin had these big wooden doors and window coverings that lock to prevent anyone from breaking in while no one is there. I agree to this and say we'll stay another night. Just before dusk, we lock everything up and barricade the front door, mostly because I demanded it so I could sleep easily.

Just as the night before, as we're sitting down watching television I hear the dragging, scratching, and knocking. I sit there petrified. My husband yells, "Stop it! Whoever you are you aren't funny!"

Just as he says that the knocking intensifies and we hear a deep growling through the cracks in the wood, puffs of breath say in a crackling inhuman voice, "Come....out....to play...with....me..."

I run up the stairs faster than I have ever run in my entire life, heart thundering heard against my chest, barely able to breathe. I hide under the covers. What the heck that's going to do I don't know, but it brings me an inkling of comfort. I sit there cursing my husband for not leaving when we had the chance. Whatever is out there laughs in that horrible voice for hours. Knocking and knocking all over the house, claws scratching the walls. Rattling the doors and window covering trying so hard to get them open.

Eventually it stops and we fall into an uneasy sleep. That morning we pack up our shit in a hurry and get into the truck. The house is covered in torn-in-half animals. Raccoons, squirrels, foxes, there's even half a DEER on the deck. We throw all of our shit into the truck and just before we leave, I remember that my grandpa keeps motion capture cameras on the trees surrounding the house because he likes the pictures of the wild life.

I grab them and flip through them as we're driving off, happy to be getting the heck out of there.

The pictures are nice enough. Some deer, a few blue jays, which makes me smile because they're his favorite. Just as I finally start to relax and breathe easy, I start to see pictures of the animals being nailed to the cabin. The next picture has me shaking so hard I'm about to drop the camera. Written in blood on the side of the cabin where I had originally seen the scratches are the words, "Good bye. Thanks for playing."

The final picture is what makes me scream. The first thing I notice is the yellow cat slit eyes, glaring into the camera. The miniscule, pin prick teeth covered in fur and blood and all manner of viscera. It's hunched over, its spine in an arch, waving at the camera. Furry stick like legs ending in cloven hooves with the torso of a man. Its emaciated and gangly thin. It's clearly laughing at us and the fun it's having. I drop the camera, willing the image out of my mind and look out the window, just in time to see it waving at me as we drive out of the woods.