Slender Attack

My friend Michael and I were walking home from our annual tradition of trick-or-treating and saw three kids crying on the way home. Michael asked them. One child trembled. “ The tall man with the long arms came and took mummy and daddy away.” We decided the best thing to do was to bring the kids back to Michael's place and call the police to file a missing person's report for their parents. When we got to the front door, Michael began frantically searching his pockets for his keys. The small boy gripped my hand with a tight, icy grip. So did his sister.

"What's the matter?" I ask.

They simply replied,

“Tall, thin, and faceless.“

We decided to head to my place, a newly rented apartment in a quiet cul-de-sac.

It was a dark autumn night. The musk of rotting red and yellow leaves filled the air, and choked the warm light from the atmosphere. As I walked into my humble abode, the smell of fresh paint and lemon-scented all purpose cleaner greeted me. Michael went to get on his old computer, and I stayed with the frightened kids. They begged me for some water, and I headed to the kitchen. Opening the pair of wooden cabinet doors below the sink, I grabbed a couple of paper cups. Then I heard a crash. And a scream.

I ran into the living room. The once white walls were a bright vermillion, and the sterilized carpet a now blood stained pulp of wool. The girl's body was strewn on the floor, and Michael rushed to the living room. The boy said nothing, and pointed to a dark figure outside my window.

I grabbed hold of the boy. The thing looked at me with its black, empty sockets. I fell down as something flew past me and hit Michael in the wrist. As Michael bled uncontrollably, the thing growled and whimpered violently. Michael winced and ran out the back door as I grabbed a dull knife from the kitchen drawer. As the creature stretched out of its arm to grab the horrified child, I struck it with the knife.

Wrapping its hand around my neck, I dropped the knife. I was lifted into the air. It was as if Death himself was gripping me, and it wouldn't stop until my heart stopped and my eyes went blank. As I accepted my fate, the creature dropped me, and yanked the boy from my side.

As the thing walked up to me, I couldn't help but grovel in impotent rage. Its face was entirely featureless, and it stood awkwardly up against my apartment ceiling. I could've sworn it was laughing. Taunting me with its spindly arms.

As it slid away, I grabbed the knife from the floor beside me. I pounced on the thing and viciously began stabbing it. The creature let out a series of ear-splitting screeches, and I fell. Blood now freely flowing from my ears and nose, I could feel myself accepting the cold embrace of Death once more.

I couldn't help but watch as the boy jumped onto the monster and stabbed it through the chest, and then be thrown against a wall and gutted.

Everything went black.

I woke up in a hospital bed. My parents, Mike, the little girl, and the boy were beside my bed. I tried to sit up, but Michael pushed me back into the cot. They never left from that spot.

A year later, I told them all about the tall thin faceless man, and they gleefully denied its existence. They suggested I go back to my home.

I walked down the street, which was now deserted. I walked to the front door and opened it. I was greeted by the smell of fresh paint and all purpose lemon cleaner. The walls were white. It's Halloween today.