Ugg. I’m exhausted.
Driving long distances isn’t fun. Driving long distances in a strange car occupied by a newly paranoid friend and a nearly comatose kidnapped girl, avoiding an otherworldly monster that can appear wherever the fuck it wants and coping with the fact that you may well have killed your best friend is somewhat worse.
Jesus, what was that? Like a week ago?
Damien and his buddy, that Arkady fellow, called us up during that whole… that whole Ars Goetia fiasco. They said something about a plan, that they were going to go and do Damien’s dumbfuck summoning bullshit again, that they were going to pull it away from us. Well, actually Damien said this while Arkady seemed to throw a goddam party in the background. I told him no, that he’d done enough helping me get Sara back, that we could get out of this ourselves, that Henry had enough in him for the one last push we needed. It seems though that they were already moving.
It just vanished.
I fucking cursed him. He always had to go and do things his way, never listened. We took advantage of the opportunity of course, no sense not to. I ran into our rooms, threw some shit into a bag, grabbed Hank’s keys and pulled both him and Sara out the door. Raced down to the parking garage, got into the car, ignored Henry’s half hearted protests and just started driving.
We didn’t have a destination besides as far away from the room as possible. I just drove furiously dialing Damien’s number over and over. I got a hold of him eventually; right cursed the bastard out too. I calmed down though, told him what all had happened, how it just sorta vanished from us, thanked him, and threatened to kill him myself if he ever tried to pull that shit again for me.
And then we just kept driving. I looked over and Henry was passed out, he slept for like an entire day, by the time he woke up we were nearly out of Illinois. And I was fucking exhausted, Henry had no clue where we were or what was going on, and I was too damn tired to bother explaining. I pulled into a hotel and paid for a room. And then I just slept.
Henry just thought he saw something. He’s a fucking wreck. Jumping at shadows, at everything really, he’s imagining our shadow everywhere… he can feel its nonexistent eyes on him. Night, day, doesn’t matter, if something moves in his peripheral vision or there happens to be a figure some distance off I can guarantee to you he’s going to flip out one way or the other. Hell, it would be kinda funny if you know… if it wasn’t so fucking terribly unfunny.
Anyhow, back to what I was saying.
We settled into the room, I took a well deserved sleep and woke up to Henry yelling about Arkady.
You all know what’s going on with Arkady better than I do; hell even now I don’t know much about this Labyrinth or whatever the hell it is. But Henry, during my slumber, got the internet in our room set up and started looking at the blogs and so I was awoken by news of what had befallen my friend’s bloodthirsty associate. And then news that Damien hadn’t posted anything all.
Tried calling him, tried Facebook, Skype, no new comments on this blog or any of the others he follows, nothing on his or any of his friends’ walls. Nothing. He was just gone. Is gone.
I gathered up all our stuff, threw it back in the car, and then we set off for Texas. If he was in trouble, in trouble for helping me… well I couldn’t just sit around. We stopped at a gas station to refuel and buy a US mapbook, and then… well then I started our journey to St. Edwards. It was a long trip, took a day and a half; we didn’t stay at a hotel again, instead we spent the night in the car. The trip was peaceful though thankfully, free from Slenderattacks and the meddling of masked strangers.
We tried his apartment first of course; it is where he’s been living after all, went right up to his door and knocked, though maybe it wasn’t the best idea. No answer. Then we tried the offices where he works at the school; he hadn’t shown up for a couple weeks. I tried his parent’s house… nothing. He’d completely disappeared.
I went back to his place and threw a fucking brick through his window.
I climbed inside and looked around. Place was a goddamn mess. There were sigils tacked all over the walls, there were papers thrown everywhere, and now thanks to me there was glass strewn across the carpet. The papers, they were covered in scribblings; symbols, glyphs, research, random notes on behavior and analyses of what we all had experienced. In the corner was a stained mattress and bundle of sheets along with a laptop and busted up sword, almost certainly Arkady's accomadations. It was weird to see the place such a mess, though not nearly as weird as seeing Damien's alcohol just sitting out.
I leafed through the papers, looking for really anything that he may have left behind, a note, a plan, anything really. Grabbed their computers to look through them as well; Damien’s wasn’t protected, though Arkady’s was. I looked through his history, read all the most recent posts of the other blogs he follows, really just looking for anything that might tell me where he vanished to. I looked through Word documents, really just anything that had recently been written, read, or used. I looked at his blog one last time as precaution, just to make sure you know? Nothing. I pushed his computer to the side and grabbed Arkady’s. If I knew anything about Russian literature I probably would have actually made an attempt or two at cracking his password, but sadly I don’t. Instead I booted it up in safe mode… luckily, just like everyone else on the planet; Arkady didn’t bother to password his Administrator account. I looked through his history too, and his documents and everything else. He didn’t have anything of interest either, though it seems that his most recent post wasn’t written from his laptop unless he went and deleted his history for some reason.
Then I realized that between busting up the window and asking around about Damien that the police would probably show up around here at some point. I’ve killed so many people already; I wasn’t going be responsible for getting anyone else involved in this shit.
I mean what am I at now? That one kid’s dead, so is Ronnie and probably Damien, Henry is infected along with god know who else. I wasn’t going to let my actions maybe lead so poor unfortunate police officer and his friends and family into this shit too. I don’t know when Arkady’s coming back if he or if he ever is, and even if he does… well I doubt he gives a damn about what happens to anyone but himself. So yeah.
I pulled out the laptops again, deleted their histories, unbookmarked anything I saw that was related to this whole mess, gathered up all the stray papers and headed back to the car. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything.
Anyhow that was a few days ago. I’m sorta just driving at random now, we’re in Georgia at the moment but I think I’m gonna head up towards Virginia. I was born there so it should be at least somewhat nostalgic, on top of that I don’t know a damn soul for close to 600 miles from it so it should be a decent place to hide out while keeping family and friends save.
If we can get there it’s one less thing to worry about. I’ll only have to concern myself with helping Henry adjust, figuring out what to do with Sara, managing our small supply of money, and of course dodging our constant shadow.
You shold have taken their laptops. YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THEM.
ReplyDeleteArkady managed to post with some... alternate-reality laptop (??) and it is entirely possible that his other-worldy pc and the one in real life are somehow linked. This is just wild guessing, of course, and it could be that he is passed out somewhere in a gutter, while his spirit is traveling around Slender-land.
But it would have been better to be safe, and take the laptops to be sure.
Did you at least photograph the room before you went through it and gathered up the papers?
Maybe to order of the sigils meant something.
I understand you were in a hurry, but still. Calmness is key.
We had no use for them, we already both of ours and basically nothing else. Running out of the apartment that day we were more concerned with getting the hell out of there then what were bring with us.
ReplyDeleteI mean I suppose taking them would have been a good idea, would have at least made it look like a robbery as well as removing any possible evidence of our... situation.
But it seems it was good I left the laptops anyhow, point is though that I got what I needed from them, deleted what shouldn't be seen and got the hell out. I was really more concerned with where Damien was than documenting his place you know?