So here she was, lifting the lid of the bin and wrinkling her nose at the awful smells within. Ugh, there was a whole medley of stuff in here - the takeaway pizza from last night, that lasagne she couldn't finish, bits of fish, the piri piri sauce Daniel had taken one bite of and ran screaming from the room... Someday, they were going to give that bin a proper wash-out. But for now, the technopath concentrated on throwing the bag in and shutting the lid, pushing it down a bit to help it fit properly.
It occurred to her, at that moment, that the bird feeders needed refilling. They'd been brought recently, and Robbie enjoyed looking out of the back window and watching starlings, blackbirds and more gather around them and peck away at the seed within. So instead of heading straight back indoors, Carol turned around and headed down the side path, down to modest back garden that saw the brunt of the spring sun. The feeder hung by a wire on the fence at the other side of the garden, and the redhead had to cross the whole length of the grass so she could reach the feeder and unhook it.
Then she made the mistake of looking over the back fence.
At first, she thought it was just another one of the scraggly trees, lined up in neat rows in the field beyond. But she blinked, and it had moved forward by several meters, and then her brain began to register several things in a mad, cold rush of terror. Firstly, it wasn't even the same moss-dotted brownish-green colour as the other trees trees - only white and black, with a hint of red. Secondly, it was still moving, in a wobbly, foot-dragging and arm-swinging fashion that suggested it was too top-heavy for it's own good.
Third, it was moving right towards her.
A scream was rising in Carol's throat, but she swallowed it back. Yet the horror was still bubbling in the pit of her stomach, and when she turned to run back into the house she nearly tripped over her own feet, catching herself on her hands before she could hit the ground. Then she nearly flew the remaining distance up the path, dove through the back door and traversed the kitchen and hallway, once again nearly falling over as she stumbled into the living room. Her sudden entry was so startling, Crusoe jumped about a foot in the air and ripped the newspaper by accident.
"Carol," cried an indignant Daniel, "what the f-?!"
"It's here."
Everyone stopped at the spot at that, staring. Carol's eyes were wide, her face was drawn and pale, and it looked as though she would collapse from sheer terror at any moment.
"Who-?" Daniel began to say.
"You know!" Carol flapped one arm impatiently, her voice getting more and more high-pitched. "It! Tall, dark and faceless?!"
"Now, hold on just a moment." Crusoe dropped down off the table and padded over to Carol, eyes narrowed. "How can you be so sure about this, Carol? We destroyed it back on Orvance, remember? How could it be possibly-?"
"It's right outside!" shrieked Carol, surprising even herself. "I'll show you!" And before anyone could stop her, she'd dashed over to the curtain that overlooked the garden and flung it open. Sunlight streamed in, and at first Daniel merely swore and covered his eyes, still not properly awake even now in the middle of the afternoon. If there was one thing he hated more than anything, it was sun on the telly whilst trying to watch Jeremy Clarkson spout bullshit on something he knew fuck all about.
Then Robbie's terrified wail made him look again.
It was in the garden now. It was tall enough to block out the sun from one of the windows, casting a dark shadow over the living room despite standing a good two metres or so away from the window itself. And there was no mistaking it this time - the elongated shape, the chalk-white skin, the darkened suit and blood-red tie. Not to mention the complete lack of a face - that was probably the most striking part of the whole thing.
For a moment, nobody moved or spoke. They were all in complete disbelief - how could they be seeing the tall, familiar form standing right in their garden, looking back at them? It was as if they were in some awful lucid nightmare, in which they were fully aware of what was happening in front of them, but do anything about it. They all stood like statues, gaping in horror at the thing they thought they'd disposed of all those years ago - the thing partly responsible for destroying their old world.
And then a second wail from Robbie, followed by the house's foundation shaking, knocked them back into reality.
"What do we do?!" hissed Daniel, the first to speak.
"Help me lock up everything," Carol whispered back. "The doors, the windows - all of them. Crusoe, you get Robbie to safety and get Sine on the phone."
"Consider it done already." The feline leaped over to where Robbie was sitting, eyes bulging in fear, and pawed at his leg to get his attention. "This way, Robbie. Quickly, now!"
Robbie nodded and, although constantly looking over his shoulder and with a whine in his throat like a terrified puppy, followed Crusoe in a hasty sprint out of the room. At the same time, Carol and Daniel began their own work, intent on keeping the intruder out of the house. The older man, biting back the bile of hatred in his throat, reached over and slid the latches to the windows shut, whilst Carol began tugging at the curtains to draw them over and blot them all from view.
The figure did nothing. It merely watched.
-------
Crusoe had considered his lack of fingers no more than an annoyance. True, his paws weren't that good at holding pencils and other small objects, but normally his mouth served just fine. And besides, paws were better for running fast, anyway - something which, in his current form, he was very good at and often had to rely on as he played the part of house rat-catcher. Very rarely did he ever wonder why his stubby digits weren't any longer.
Right now, though, he was considering it all a curse. Because paws are not designed, in any way at all to press buttons on a telephone, especially the modern ones that insisted on having the buttons be small, flat and indistinguishable from the rest of the handset. The intellectual found himself repeatedly biting back curses as he pressed a two when he wanted a five, pressed three keys at the same time and struggled to press the backtrack button. What didn't help was Robbie, whimpering in terror in a corner of the cupboard under the stairs they were both hiding in, but Crusoe knew he wasn't in much condition to help out, so he didn't blame him for it.
The icing on the cake, though, was when Sine didn't pick up. And Crusoe could have outright swore aloud when he realized what that meant - Carol had told him that if Sine was unable to answer her own phone, he could call... But he wasn't sure he wanted to. Yes, the situation was dire, but the last thing he wanted was to deal with the physical embodiment of a call centre whilst a hated enemy was standing right outside their window. It was frankly more than he was willing to put up with.
Then, hearing Carol rush past, he turned his head on reflex and saw the terror in Robbie's eyes. Saw the child, once a victim and puppet of the enemy outside, cackling through television screens and threatening vague, eldritch doom upon everything. And those blind eyes were, no, doubt re-living the experience over again as the mental image of being reduced to a slave once more, or worse, played out in that small, broken mind of his, and much bigger things were at stake right now than personal annoyances.
"Gah..." Crusoe groaned, biting whatever he had that served as a lip. "The robot it is, then."
Cue several more seconds of angry flailing with his stubby paws, trying to hit the right buttons. But after some false starts and backtracks, he managed to type it in and send the call.
And, unlike the previous one, somebody was there to pick it up.
"Hello," came the voice.
"Is that Hypotenuse?" Crusoe's voice was a low hiss, an attempt at staying quiet bolstered by a mix of impatience and fright.
"It is Hypotenuse. Your tone of voice suggests a crisis. Speak."
Keeping one eye on the cupboard door, just in case anything tried to burst through it, Crusoe bent lower to the handset so Hypotenuse could hear him better.
"Now..." he hissed, tail flicking in agitation. "I don't wish to cause a panic, and this may seem incredible. But our old nemesis, the Slender Man, is standing right in our back garden! We could use some assistance at this immediate moment!" Hopefully, that was enough to convince her.
A pause.
"...That is impossible."
"I wish it was," insisted Crusoe, "but I have seen it with my own eyes! Can you not come down here and help? Maybe send a weapon or two via... whatever madcap invention your mother has?"
"No, Crusoe. That is impossible. Gorr'Rylaehotep cannot be back."
Crusoe slapped a paw to his forehead, quite audibly. This was what he dreading.
"Damn it, woman," he bellowed, forgetting himself in the surge of annoyance. "I have no time for this nonsense! We are all in mortal danger, Carol is running around locking every conceivable entrance into the house and I am pretty sure Robert is having a genuine panic attack right next to me! Something! Anything! Even a simple pistol would be useful at this point! Nine Circles Below, just do something to help!"
No sooner had he said this than an ear-piecing scream ripped through the house. It made Crusoe yowl and leap a foot in the air, coming down with his fur on end and his teeth bared. It made Robbie shriek himself, curling up into a ball and causing the house to vibrate even harder as his psychic powers briefly lashed out, sharking the foundations once again. And all of that was loud enough for Hypotenuse to hear, on the other end of the phone.
And for her to understand.
"....give me to Carol."
-------
found you
The scream that had lurked in Carol's throat for so long finally broke free as the Slender Man bent low under the archway of the dining room. How it had gotten inside, she had literally no idea - she should have remember that thing it did where it could teleport and go anywhere, disregarding conventional physics as it went. But she hadn't remembered, and now it was right here in the house oh god what am i gonna do-
And then she felt something plastic being shoved into her hand.
"It's for you," Crusoe snapped, once his mouth was no longer full. On automatic, Carol lifted the handset of the phone to her ear, eyes still fixed on the monstrosity in front of her.
"Ohmygodhelpitsrightinfrontofme" are her first hysterically babbled words.
"Carol," came Hypotenuse's voice, as level as ever. "Gorr'Rylaehotep cannot have returned."
"BUT IT'S STANDING RIGHT-"
Shouting was the worst thing she could have done. Upon hearing that, the Slender Man ducked under the archway and, pushing itself upright, begins to stiffly walk towards her, arms swinging like tetherballs as it crossed the carpeted floor with an air of steady patience. The sight of it caused Carol to cut off her own sentence with a whimper of terror, backing away until her back hit the mantlepiece, but it wasn't enough to stop the monster's advance, and Daniel wasn't suddenly materializing from the side to try and distract it.
"Carol. Listen. Mother has maintained a daily watch on the seal of the Song of the Knight since you entered her employ. Her first use of her Gauntlet once we left the ship was to compensate for her missed time and reinforce the seal. Mother had twenty redundant alarms if anyone attempts to tamper or break it. I have quadruple-checked them all and found nothing. The seal is intact. The prison is intact. There have been no energy readings that remotely match Gorr'Rylaehotep in any way. Logic then dictates that since Gorr'Rylaehotep cannot be there, Gorr'Rylaehotep IS NOT THERE."
"Bah, idiotic machine!" Crusoe, finally losing all patience, crouched low to the floor, claws unsheathing. "I'll just-"
"Carol, ROLL TO DISBELIEVE."
-------
"Your attack," responded Hypotenuse, her monotone voice almost deadpan, "does nothing. It sticks into the gargoyle's hide and lodges there with a thunk, but there is no blood and nothing happens. It continues to attacj, and now it has an arrow sticking out of it."
"Screw that," shouted Daniel, snatching up the dice. "I'm going to suplex this fucking thing!"
Carol groaned, and put her hands over her face. "Daniel, it's not possible to-"
"If destroying this gargoyle is really such a major priority," the android chipped in, "then a suplex seems inefficient. A sledgehammer, or dynamite, would be more effective in the long run. I still cannot fathom why you would-"
"Suplexing is cooler," is the snappish reply.
"...Roll for grappling."
Daniel did indeed roll, and cursed quite loudly as he got a One.
"The gargoyle is so incredibly heavy," continues Hypotenuse, "that in trying to lift it you break both of your arms. Roll for damage."
Daniel growled, and rolled again. And as it transpired that his arms were of that variety of broken that meant doing anything was now impossible, he cursed even louded than he had previously. Carol was just wondering when he would twig that maybe throwing himself screaming at every slightly-dangerous thing was a bad idea more often than not, but as it is she'd have to tolerate his aggressive playstyle for five sessions now. And that had meant running to what appeared to be a gargoyle, several levels higher than they could take on, and now half the party was in dire need of medical service because of it.
It was rather gratifying to see Karma the Alligator bite him in the ass for it, though.
"Ever heard tell," purred Crusoe with an air of superiority, "of a Dread Gazebo, Daniel? I hear they're quite the challenge."
"Shut the fuck up," snarled Daniel, muscles bulging as he held the spikes back. "I mean, seriously, why won't this thing budge?! I've tried everything!"
"Rather odd, indeed." Crusoe yawned and stretched himself out. "Now, perhaps if you are done making an idiot out of-"
But that was the moment Carol put two and two together, fit the last piece to the jigsaw and other such metaphors. And when she thumped one hand on the table in realization, everyone else jumped from the suddenness of it.
"It isn't there."
A pause.
"...what the fuck do you mean?" Daniel looked as though he'd wandered into a German dub of Catcher in the Rye being played in the theatre. "Of course it's there! I just attacked it!"
"Yeah, and a fat lot of good that did you, right?" Carol tapped her finger on the table impatiently, lining up her thoughts. "Look, you can't destroy what isn't there, right? We've been throwing everything we've got at it and it hasn't dropped. The only reason that could be was that it was never there to begin with - an illusion. And you can't hurt or kill an illusion, can you? So, how do we get rid of something that technically only exists because we believe it does?"
Crusoe had his mouth open. Daniel just looked lost.
But Hypotenuse nodded, and offered the dice once more.
"Roll to disbelieve."
-------
When Carol opened her eyes again, the room was empty.
There was no awful chill, no dread shadow. The looming figure in the middle of the room was gone - not a trace of him could be seen, no shadows or lurking suggestions behind any nook or cranny in the room, and everything seemed lighter now. Crusoe, muscles still bunched up in the springing posture, was blinking in confusion as he stared at the hole in the air where a Slender Man once stood, but now didn't, but Carol ignored him as he sprang to his feet and tried to act like nothing had happened at all and he hadn't made a fool of himself.
Relief overwhelmed her as, trembling, she slid down the wall until her butt hit the carpet.
"...it worked," she breathed out, at last.
Daniel ruined the moment by running in. His mouth, which had opened to deliver important news, remained open as he took in the scene of Carol slumped against the wall, Crusoe trying to recover his dignity by acting nonchalant and a distinct lack of ominous tension. There was a long, awkward moment where nobody spoke at all.
"...what did I fucking miss?" he asked, at last.
"....Carol," Hypotenuse chipped in, "everyone in your vicinity saw the illusion, correct?"
Carol nodded. "Yeah. They did."
"The odds of everyone having a spontaneous shared hallucination is low. I believe you were just subjected to some sort of mental attack. You should return to home base, this may relate to other issues we have been experiencing."
The redhead nodded again, jaw set. The call to action. "Alright. I'll be right over."
"Put me on the phone to Robert."
--------
And whilst Hypotenuse set about soothing poor Robbie over the phone, Carol slung her work bag over one shoulder and grimly reached for the Sifter.
It was going to be another of those weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment