creepshow (wattys2018)

The Tall Man: A slender man story

"This way emily!" My best friend Carson yelled as we dashed through the woods behind my house.

We'd heard the rumors earlier this week about the tall man that waits in the woods and decided that tonight we would meet Eric and Abby to prove the rumors untrue. It was around twelve, so the moon was casting an eerie white, misty glow on everything underneath it. The wind was cold and chilled me to the bone.

I pulled the purple scarf tighter around my neck and finally caught up to Carson, slowing to a walk. "Where are they?"

She pointed towards the large clearing on the top of the huge hill. We held onto the trees as we made our way to the top.

"What a surprise! I was sure one of you, probably Emily, would chicken out!" Eric laughed as Abby socked him on the arm.

"Nope." We walked over and sat on one of the large logs in the middle of the clearing in front of Eric and Abby.

"What's our plan on finding this guy exactly? I'm freezing." Carson groaned and rubbed her arms, leaning her head on my shoulder.

"Okay one," Eric started. "His name is Slender Man and two, we don't find him he finds us. Do you even know the story about these woods at all?" We shook our heads. "Wow. That's-thats sad. Okay, um-well about forty-nine years ago three kids, a boy and two girls, lived right down there around where your house is now." He nodded at me. "Their mom sent them out to collect some wood for the fire place late one winters eve. It was particularly cold that night and the children walked a little slower than usual, huddling together for warmth. The boy, the oldest child, about twelve, walked ahead to one of these trees, leaving the girls at the bottom of the hill. A few minutes later, just after he had gathered an arm full of wood, he heard his sisters screaming. He panicked, assuming some animal was near, and dropped the wood. He didn't see his sisters at the bottom so he ran home, keeping an eye out for any large animals. When he reached their small cabin only one sister, the youngest, was there, sobbing to their mother and father about the tall man in the black clothes. She said his head came half way up on the trees and he didn't seem to have any facial features. Their father told her stop with her nonsense and assured the rest of them that the sister had most likely gotten turned around in the trees. He told them to stay put and that he would find the sister."

He paused just long enough for Abby to get frustrated. "Well? What happened?" She demanded causing him to smirk.

"The night grew darker and soon enough the moon was at its highest point, signaling the start of midnight. The boy was getting more worried with every passing minute as he watched the sleeping women and the door desperately praying that his father would walk in at any minute. He waited all night long, waking his sister and mother when the sun began to peek over the horizon. They all hurried outside to search for both missing members of the family, but what they saw when they opened the door brought them all to their knees. Blood. It covered all the trees within a five mile radius of the cabin. It dripped on to the grass, pooling at the bottom of the trunks. The two trees in the front of the patch held the sisters jacket and the fathers straw hat, dangling the items from the tallest branch. There was a phrase written on the family's front door in the sticky red substance, it read: ' I am faster than the rushing rivers, I am taller than the largest oak, I am slyer than the smartest fox, I am older than the first trunk, I am slender man'".

"Whatever. You just made that up. " I laughed.

"Did not! My mom use to tell me that story all the time!"

Carson laughed. "So did mine! She only told me so I would stay out of the woods at night, stupid. That's why all parents tell their kids scary stories, to keep from them from doing stuff their not suppose to do."