There's this song running through my head. It's by this English punk band called the Clash. It's called "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"


    Should I stay or should I go now?
    Should I stay or should I go now?
    If I go there will be trouble
    And if I stay it will be double.
    So come on and let me know.


Because that's what I'm feeling at the moment: I don't know whether I should stay with...well, I guess I have to call him Ahab now, since he was right. I don't know if I should stay with him and help him in any way I can...or if I should just rush back home and try to forget I ever saw the thing I saw and hope I'm not haunted by it.

Can I forgot?

Do I have a choice in the matter?

He's starting calling me "Queequeg" again, by the way. But I know it's not part of a delusion now -- it's just his way to stepping back into a role, hiding behind a wall. And perhaps that's the best thing to do. Erect a wall and hope it's good enough to hide from the Slender Man.

Or, as Ahab wants, go on the offensive. Find these "proxies" that work for it (why would anyone willingly do that, I have no idea), track them, try to find some way to rid the world of it.

It's a goal that is probably impossible. Yet he seems determined to go ahead with it.

So: should I stay or should I go?


I'm a doctor. I got into psychiatry to help people. If I just left him...what help would that do?

Sigh. Stay it is then.

Queeqeg signing out.

Bringing her back

She's talking again. I managed to snap her out of her previous state. I would thank God, if I believe in one.

How did I do it?

Well, I went to the sink and turned on the hot water. When it was so hot that it was steaming, I led Christine in the bathroom and placed her hand under the faucet. She automatically pulled back, like I thought she would. She  still had all of her reflexes.

Then I placed my own hand under the faucet and let the scalding water hit my skin. I suppress the urge to pull my hand away and instead pushed through the pain and left my hand under the flow of water.

After a minute, Christine grabbed my hand and pulled it back for me. Pain for her resulted in automatic reflexes - but pain for me? That pushed through her psyche, that made her pay attention.

All she ever wanted to do was help me and I used that to bring her back.

After that, she started talking, a few words at a time until she just couldn't stop. She asked me so many questions -- questions about what the Slender Man did to my family, what happened when I first saw him, what I knew about him. I admit, it was a little exhausting, but I tried to answer each question.

She knows now. She believes.

And now the question becomes: will she help me?

Better

She slowly gets better. She moves and walks and sits by herself. But her eyes are still blank, staring at whatever is in front of them. I fear exposure to the slender bastard has...damaged her mind too much.

I am going to try something. I hope that it will work.

Watching the Walls

We are still at the motel. I am hoping Christine will say something to me, but she stares at the walls, as if they were the only interesting things. I tried getting her to go to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she started whimpering and then screaming. So I stayed up with her and watched her as she watched the walls.

Did I do this to her? Did my pursuit of my white whale make her see him, too? If so, I wish I had never come here. I wish I had never found him again.

Failure

I am a failure. I tried and yet could not kill him. I was frozen as he stared at me.

And then she came. Queequeg Christine. She walked towards us and saw him. She saw him and everything that he was.

And he grew. His body seemed to shudder and he grew a few inches taller and his arms grew longer and he turned to look at her. And I knew that he was going to kill her, just as he killed my wife and children. He was going to take everything away from me again.

And so I ran. I ran and grabbed Christine and I pulled her away, I pulled her away as I felt him coming nearer. I felt the world darken, the shadows lengthen.

The world fell away and there was only us and him.

I shielded her with my body. I shouted my foulest curses at him. And I pulled the hunting knife I had bought, its blade sharp, and I put it to my throat.

I do not know why that stopped him. Perhaps he didn't want to see me dead. Perhaps he has plans for me. And if he does, perhaps I should just kill myself now.

But I can't. Because Queequeg Christine has seen him now. She believes now. And I can't help her if I'm dead.



And a part of me

(only a part)

is relieved that

I am not crazy.

He was mad yesterday because the Slender Man didn't appear like was supposed to. I think the fantasy is finally failing. We walked up and down throughout Monrovia Canyon Park and nothing happened.


He insisted that we go back today. I said that was fine, mainly because the park turned out to be very beautiful and it wasn't too hot, so it might actually be a nice day.


He's been going on and off the trail now for a while. I keep insisting that he stay on the track, but he wants to wander off. I'm dictating this on my phone right now and look, there he goes again, walking off the trail, in his own world.


What's that? It looks like he's talking to somebody. Weird that they would be walking in the park while wearing a business suit, but who am I to judge?


Man, he's tall. He's tall and pale. He's tall and pale and wearing a business suit. God, he must think he's the slender man oh god I have to stop him from hurting anybody.


hey hey
stop
dont
what are you


oh god oh god
its you
its you


he was right
oh god help me

In the city

He's here. I know it. I can feel it.

I don't know how I know, I just do. It...seems like all the shadows are darker. Like everything is sharper, as if someone turned up the contrast on the world. It didn't happen like this last time, but maybe that's because I hadn't met him yet, hadn't known about him.

And now I do.

He's here. I know it.

Alright, here we go. Next destination: Monrovia Canyon Park.

He actually called me 'Christine' today. Even though it was probably reflexive, it's still a good sign. It shows that somewhere deep down, he knows this is a delusion. 


He was back to calling me 'Queequeg' this evening though. He became excited because he said he found something online. Some park where the Slender Man was sighted. It's on Monrovia, California.


If it proves to him that there is no Slender Man, I will buy the plane tickets myself.

He's getting more agitated, more angry. This hunt isn't going like it's 'supposed to.' He's not finding the evidence he thinks he should.


Because there isn't any evidence, I want to tell him. There isn't any Slender Man out there.


But I can't tell him. I have to let him figure it out on his own.

More breadcrumbs

Everywhere I go, that's what I find. Just more breadcrumbs. Nothing substantial, nothing tangible. Sometimes there aren't even any witnesses - there's just a feeling in the air, an electricity that I know comes from him.

A game of hide-and-seek turns bad. A group of teens, out for the summer, stumble upon a killing ground. A woman sees a tall man with a pale face standing in her lawn, but when she opens the door, he's gone.

Even the kidnappings are random. Some children are taken, some children escape. Why? Is there something special about the ones left behind?

And why kidnap some and kill others?

Why kill at all?

Why kill my family, you bastard?

WHY?

Breadcrumbs

In the newspaper today:

"Two children missing. [...] One witness claims to have seen a 'tall stranger in a suit' standing near the playground. Authorities are still investigating."

He's been here.

We're in a motel now. He's been 'tracking' the Slender Man, checking for sightings online and so on. I want to tell him it's not real, that it's all in his mind. But ripping him away from this fantasy right now would just damage him more. He needs something to hold on to. I guess that means sleeping in motel rooms for the foreseeable future.

Queequeg

I guess I'm Ahab's first mate. Or harpooner, since I refused to be called "Starbuck." (I didn't want a name that was associated with mocha lattes and Battlestar Galactica, thank you very much.) Anyway, he called me Queequeg and I guess I've gotten used to the name by now.

I'm not here for his revenge, though. I'm here because...

Okay, this might sound silly, but a long time ago I read Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote. And then I saw this old movie called They Might Be Giants (and yes, it was where the band got its name from). It's basically Don Quixote in a modern setting: the main character, instead of believing himself a knight, thinks that he's Sherlock Holmes. And his psychiatrist, he believes, is Watson and they go out on an adventure.

The name comes from a quote from Quixote, about tilting towards windmills and how Quixote thought that they were giants. Watson points out that they were just windmills, but Sherlock says, "Ah, but they might be giants!"

...well, guess what? Yeah, that's right, I'm Ahab's psychiatrist. Queequeg the shrink.

And he thinks he's Ahab, but he's actually Don Quixote. Thinking that this "slender man" killed his family. It's...very sad, actually.

Anyway, I'm here because I want to keep him out of trouble. I'm here to stop him from doing any harm to anybody. To stop him from killing anybody. I know I should put him in a psychiatric clinic, but I just can't, not after the fire that actually killed his family.

So here I am: first mate to Captain Ahab. Tilting at windmills. Which might be slender men.

Call Me Ahab

That's not my real name, of course. But it's the name I have taken. It's the name I need right now. Because I'm after a white whale and I won't stop until it's dead or I am.

It didn't take my leg. It took something even more precious: it took my family. And it left me with nothing, nothing in my heart except hate.

So here I am. On a mission: to kill that slender son of a bitch once and for all.