The Creep Hunters

Chpt. 2 The Invasion (that escalated quickly...)

Seven months later. My training is complete, and we have two new recruits to train. I also killed my first Creep. This is where it all went wrong. His name was TicciToby. He was a class 2, sentient Creep armed with two hatchets. But where I killed him was the most concerning. I had just stepped outside to get some fresh air. I walked to the edge of the block when... I heard the footsteps behind me. I spun around to see him dashing towards me. I pulled out the hand gun I was carrying and shot. The bullet hit its mark and Toby's chest sprayed blood out the back. The others heard the shot and ran outside guns drawn.

"What's happening?” Wyatt yelled. "Oh... damn... Well looks like you killed your first Creep!" he said joyfully.

"This may be the improper time to celebrate.” Dex said.

"Who is that?" Johnathan, one of the new recruits, asked. Dex walked over and turned the body over with his foot.

"Looks like TicciToby." He paused and pushed up his glasses. "But why the hell is he so close?" He asked under his breath.

"I dunno, but we need to get rid of the body." Tyler said. "Jake, drag that inside will you?" He said to the other new recruit. Jake put his gun away. He was shaking badly, but he walked over and grabbed the legs of Toby's limp body. We all walked inside and started arguing about why a Creep would be so close to our HQ. We discussed ideas for a couple hours. At around 8:45 we all started feeling sick. We all felt light headed. Not severely.

"Something is not right." Tyler said. "This seems familiar, but I can't place it.” He said rubbing his head.

Dex responded. "To me this reminds me of slender.....sickness..... Oh no... oh god no......." I asked him what was wrong.

"Well it is little known that TicciToby is a proxy for the Slender Man. Come on, put two and two together." It finally clicked. "We need to get out of here!" He yelled.

"Where is Johnathan?" Jake asked looking around the room. Last I had seen him he had popped outside for a smoke. Then I heard glass shatter. I jumped down the ladder hole and saw Johnathan’s bloody body smashed against the wall. It looked like he had been thrown through the window at an incredible speed. (And this is why you don't smoke kids.) I heard static in my mind. It was defining. Then I saw him. He was bent over looking in the window he had just smashed. He then walked over to the door. I was frozen in place. You hear the stories, see the fan art, play the games... but none of them evoke such true fear. He is terrifying. Words can't even begin to describe him, and the static, god the static. I saw a black tendril enter the house through the small cracks between the door and the wall. They wrapped around the door and yanked. They broke the door in two and the Slender Man stepped inside. Jake ran up behind me and grabbed my arm and pulled me away. "Run!" he yelled. His words almost drowned out by the static snapped me back to reality. I shook my head and started running. Everyone was at the back door running outside. I stopped and looked for Jake. He had stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, gun drawn.

"Jake come on!" I yelled.

"No you go. I'll stay behind and hold him off!" He yelled his gun at eye level. His hands were shaking so much that on a Richter scale they would be a .7 earthquake. Before I turned to run I saw him scream and fire multiple shots off. Then from the darkness two tendrils grabbed Jake. One on his neck the other clamped his legs together. He was lifted up off the ground and ripped in half from the ribs down. His entrails slid out of his body. I suppressed a gag and ran. He ripped him in half. I ran through the city streets. I didn't know where I was going. Didn't really care at the time. I eventually stopped and slouched on the side of a building. I started thinking again. The static was gone. No... It was coming back. Wait... it's just my walkie-talkie. I pulled it out of the belt and started fumbling with the knob. I finally found a channel without static.

"Hello?"

A voice came through it was Dex. "Alexander? Where are you? Is Jake with you?" I looked around until I found a street sign.

"I'm on 29th street, Jake is dead. The Slender Man got him."

"I see... I'm sorry. We will come to you. Stay where you are. We will be there in 10 minutes." Dex said. I sat down and waited. I heard light footsteps. I thought it was the others. So I stood up. Instead of seeing five friends, I saw one Rake. He was crawling slowly towards me. Limping on the leg that Matthew had shot. I pulled out my gun and pulled the trigger. Nothing. I had taken out my clip when we were talking. I couldn't run I was at my breaking point. I sat back down and said.

"Hello again. I forgot how ugly you are." I closed my eyes and waited. Then I heard a single pair of footsteps running towards me. I then heard a sound like a knife entering flesh, a shriek then a thump. I opened my eyes and saw the Rake lying on his back with a gaping wound on his throat gushing out blood. Standing above him was someone I had never seen before. Was average height and relatively skinny. He had on a gray turtleneck. It was stained red by the Rake. He had what looked like a switchblade in his hand dripping with blood. He had a calm stance, and he seemed completely unfazed that he had just killed the Rake. This must be the legendary Christian I had heard so much about. 

"Let's go." He said skipping introductions. He started walking away. I jumped to my feet and ran after him. We ran into the others.

"Christian? What are you doing here?" Lazaro asked.  

"Well I was on my way down to check on HQ then I saw the Rake crawling into an alleyway, so I did what I always do. Killed it." He said smiling at the last two words. "So where is the party?" 

"Well it sure as hell is not back at HQ." Lazaro said rubbing his forehead. "We got kicked out by the Slender Man. There was an attack."

Christian raised an eyebrow. "The base was attacked?" 

"Yep. The two newest recruits were killed." 

"Well that’s unfortunate." He said without batting an eye. "So we need a new base of operations? I gue-"

Tyler interrupted him, "Do you not care that two people died today? They were killed by the Slender Man! Knowing him he probably ripped them in half!" (heh heh... maybe he did...)

"Yes, but if we are to survive we must move on. So as I was saying before I was quite rudely interrupted. We can all stay at my bunker for the time being."

"Yeah. Let's go stay in some dark, sodden, underground bunker. Let's take cameras down there, we can make a horror movie while we are at it!" Tyler hollered.

"Hey cool it!" Lazaro yelled. "Where the hell else are we supposed to go?" Tyler just stared at the ground.

Wyatt spoke up. "You know Lazaro is right. As much as I hate the idea... We have no other alternatives." 

"This is an unheard of event, so seeing as we had no contingency plan for a Slender attack this is our best option." Dex said.

"It would take quite a while to walk all the way. If we can catch a train to the edge of the town it would be much shorter of a walk." Christian said.

"Sounds fine. Let's move." Lazaro said ending the conversation. We all walked silently to the train station and headed off to the edge of town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok... So maybe I went a litte overboard on the Slender attack scene... but I had to show the raw power that he had as a foreshadowing of sorts.