The Slender Man (22 page)

“Look out!” I scream, but it’s too late, the car crashes
into the Slender Man and I watch his hand reach right through Deputy Yew and
right into my face. The only thing I hear over my own scream is Slender’s
laughter.

Deputy Terrence Yew abruptly lost radio contact with the sheriff’s
station while reporting that he had recovered Alyssa and Adam Redwood. A squad
car was sent immediately to the deputy’s last known location. The responding
officer/deputy reported that the deputy was dead, but Adam Redwood was alive
and in the car. He had crashed into an unknown object that was at first
speculated to be a hit-and-run, but collision reports indicate that the front
of the car was deeply dented into a V-shape by an object that was something too
slender to be any type of automobile.

The damage from the crash doesn’t appear to have been what
killed the deputy. There was a large wound through the deputy’s chest that ran
all the way through his seat that suggests that he was impaled. When Adam
Redwood was questioned, he didn’t seem to recall anything that happened after a
recent bus accident that claimed the lives of several children.

A search party was sent into the forest to find more
information about the crash and to search for Alyssa Redwood. Her guitar was
found muddied but intact in a pile of leaves. A small distance away from the
guitar, a few members of the search party noted that one of an odd tree’s lower
branches had a large amount of blood on it and around that branch was a large
copper Star of David necklace that the Redwood family confirmed had been in the
possession of Alyssa Redwood the last time she’d been seen…

DNA analysis of the blood sample taken from the branch
revealed that it belonged to Deputy Yew. The bark on the trunk of the tree was
severely gouged, and had paint marks that matched the paint of Deputy Yew’s
patrol car, and microscopic bits of glass taken from the tree branch matched
the glass from the windshield. The diameter and shape of the tree exactly
matched the indention in the front of the car, indicating that the tree was
what the patrol car had collided with, however the vehicle was found more than
two miles from the tree and there were no tire marks in the leaves and mud,
damage to trees between the damaged tree and the road, or other evidence that
the vehicle had veered into the forest. No other signs of Alyssa Redwood were
ever found.

About
the Author:

Dexter Morgenstern was born in North Carolina and has been
home-schooled most of his life in part due to being diagnosed with Asperger’s
Syndrome at an early age, which led to being somewhat socially outcast. Over
time, Dexter developed a vivid imagination and love for chemistry and biology.
This led him to delve into the world of science fiction and begin writing at
the age of fifteen.Dexter combined his imagination with his appreciation for science,
and competed in the NaNoWriMo contest in 2011 at the age of 17. He successfully
finished the contest and finally drafted his first  novel, “Felix Faust” as
part of the Arcane Insurrection series.

Visit him at
http://DexterMorgenstern.com

About the Artist:

Anna is a Swedish artist and art teacher who recently moved
to Washington State. She has a background within the art and media field from
several art schools and universities and received her MA in 2010. Anna’s
artwork mainly contains mixed media where graphical drawings and sculpture are
the two main elements. She has a great interest in fantasy worlds and gathers
her inspiration from the deep forests of nature, old folklore stories and
things unexplained.