Here we have the first case, which took place in a very brief window. After the events with the Medina and Cunningham families, I found myself living with Hull. And even though it had been something I was excited for, the pace at which things moved was jarring. I took some time to acclimate myself, not just to the new living arrangement, but to Newfield as a whole. I wanted to gradually become more comfortable no longer being in a war environment. So from the day after wrapping that case until almost the end of January, I would play tourist and work.
In that time, Hull took on a case that he was at first reluctant to discuss. In fact, the first details I received about it came from the evening news. It was two months later, when we were out to lunch. A woman had entered the diner and caught his eye. After she had left, he told me she was the mother of one of the victims, and also at one point a psychologist he had visited. He then proceeded to give me a very full, very vivid recap of events from that week.
I won’t lie: I’m unbelievably grateful that I was not present for this particular case.
Below I have recreated events as described by Hull. But I’m certain no literary retelling can truly capture what he experienced.
*
He wore a black shirt that bore an insignia few could recognize, a pair of sweatpants to represent his current lack of mental stimulation, and a determined look that feigned full attention in what he was doing. His dirty blonde hair wasn’t combed, his stubble was enough to make a teenage boy jealous, and his nose had a certain twitch to it. But those minor features usually paled in comparison with his eyes, one blue, one green, both always appearing to be in fluid motion.
He was Sheridan Hull, and at this point in time, he had yet to die.
It had been exactly one hundred and seven hours since Hull’s case, and the next could not have been any slower in presenting itself. The time was around 8 AM, the doctor was at work, and the detective had his face pressed against the protective screen of an indoor apiary, one he had kept hidden in the closet of the third floor. In his hands were several different syringes, each containing liquid forms of pure caffeine.
He held one syringe delicately, its tip pointed at a bee that was resting on the screen. Quick stab into the thorax, direct injection, prepare to study results. He sucked in his breath, preparing to prod the bee with the syringe. He’d always been curious to see what effects caffeine would have if injected into a honey bee. Would it be more productive? Would its body be unable to cope with the burst of energy? Now he would finally know.
“Please tell me those aren’t filled with something that’ll make me have to arrest you,” a voice said from behind Hull. He sighed and stood, setting the syringes down on the table on pulling his latex gloves free.
“No, Inspector, they are filled with liquidized caffeine. I do not embrace the habits to which you are referring.”
“Well thank God for that,” Lennox said as he came around to look at the bees. “That would’ve made working with you very difficult.” Hull side-glanced at the inspector, not bothering to observe anything other than his general appearance. His rather unkempt brown hair, his unshaven face, his tan coat too small for his arms, and the marks on his nose from his reading glasses. There were also trace signs of coffee on his bottom lip, evidence of lack of sleep under his eyes, and an ink smudge on his left thumb, but again, Hull wasn’t bothering to observe.
“Why are you here? How are you in here? Did you just show yourself in?” Hull chided as he put the syringes back into a box and closed the lid.
“Your landlady showed me in. It’s nice, this place. Is Dr. Walker here?”
“Dr. Walker is at work,” Hull replied as he started for the stairs, “which, if I’m not mistaken, is what you should be doing as well, but since you’re not, you may as well skip the drollery and move on to why you’re here.”
“I came to thank you for your help with the Medina-Cunningham situation. You did us a good favor stepping in on that one.”
“You came all this way on a Friday morning to thank me for something I did on Monday.”
“Well I have more to say.”
“Of course you do, now instead of insisting on a conversation filled with irrelevant jargon, you should get to what you need to say before I insist you leave.”
Lennox sighed. “The abductions in Benton county from November and December are still unsolved. They’ve had police investigating to no avail, and last I heard, their official detective ended up dead. This morning I got a call saying a nine-year-old had been reported as missing. I was hoping you may be interested in helping, because I know they could use the assistance.”
Hull set the box of syringes down on the kitchen table and grabbed a sticky note. “Why are they having difficulty?”
“Because whoever, or whatever, is taking them is good.”
“Why do you say ‘whatever?’” Hull asked as he scribbled “DO NOT THROW AWAY” on the note.
“It’ll make more sense when I introduce you to the only person who’s encountered it and lived.”
Hull slapped the note on top of the box and glanced back at Lennox. “Sounds enticing. Give me five minutes.” He stepped away from the kitchen table and towards his bedroom, and after five minutes on the dot, stepped out, no longer clad in a casual attire. His purple button-up shirt tucked into his black slacks, his knitted gloves, his purple scarf, and his gray overcoat, all compiling with the orange tennis shoes to create his ensemble.
This was how he was dressed on both the first and last times I saw him.
“All ready, Inspector.”
*
They arrived at the station shortly after, Lennox immediately leading the way into a conference room. They were scheduled to meet with a specialist, the only person to have survived an encounter with the abductor. The details given to Hull were scarce, and he presumed that was a result of Lennox not having been provided with an abundance of information either. The news about the abductions had been vague, not by choice but by lack of evidence. It was an altogether dark ordeal.
Hull stood with his back pressed against the wall when Lennox returned to the room, now accompanied by another individual. This man was only a few years younger than Hull, but he certainly seemed to enjoy his facial hair more. The hair on top of his head was roughly the same color as Hull’s, but this man instead wore it with some ridiculous attempt at a pointless combover. He wore a tan Carhartt jacket that matched, brand-wise, his black jeans. He also carried a small messenger bag under his arm. He looked at Hull with an odd lip-centric smirk.
“Alright,” Lennox said as he closed the door, “Mr. Bellham, this is Sheridan Hull, he’s our local consultant. Hull, this is Mark Bellham, he’s a...”
“Special Circumstances Investigator,” Bellham filled in. Hull noted a present lisp with the man’s S’s. More of a sibilance. The man extended his hand, which Hull took.
“What does being a ‘Special Circumstances Investigator’ entail, other than the abbreviation being a clever acronym?” Hull asked, looking the man up and down. He could tell Bellham normally wore a hat, presumably a snap brim fedora. No presence of gloves, but his dirt-covered boots suggested more time spent outside than in.
“If something comes up that’s a little out of the ordinary, I like to look into it,” Bellham replied, clasping his hands behind his back. “Like a consultant, but more interesting.” Hull scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Please tell me I’m not the only one seeing this,” Lennox piped in. Both men glanced at him with perplexed gazes. “I mean, look at you two. You could pass as brothers. Twins, even.” Hull and Bellham looked at each other before shaking their heads.
“Barely a passing resemblance,” Hull commented as he stepped over to the table.
“I don’t see it,” Bellham added as he joined Hull.
Lennox rubbed his eyes in disbelief. “I can’t tell which of you is going to be more stubborn. Bellham, you brought your laptop?”
Bellham nodded, setting the messenger bag down and pulling out his laptop. He opened it on the table and leaned down. “I made the decision to record my investigations and put them somewhere for others to observe. As a result, I have footage of our encounter with this thing.”
“Why do you both keep referring to the abductor as a thing?” Hull questioned.
Bellham peered at him before turning to Lennox. “You haven’t told him anything, have you?”
“He doesn’t believe me most of the time. I guessed it would be better for you to show him,” Lennox replied as he moved towards the door. “I’ll grab the files on the missing persons, you show him your videos.”
Hull watched as Bellham accessed YouTube before pulling up the videos. “Why publicize something like this?”
“I don’t show anything they wouldn’t put on the news,” Bellham remarked as he clicked a video titled, “The One That Got Away.”
“What is this, a television special? Are you commercializing your investigative attempts?” Hull inquired.
“I don’t commercialize them and they’re more than just attempts. I put them online to allow input. It’s a creative pool where people can voice their own thoughts. A comment could mean the difference in saving someone’s life.”
“Has a comment ever made that difference?”
Bellham scrunched his nose before replying. “Well no, but it could.”
“How many of these videos do you have, and how many actually display this ‘thing’ you all keep illusively referring to?”
“There’s one video where it shows up, but the–”
“No, no no no, show me that one, the others are trivial.”
“Fine,” Bellham sighed as he clicked back. He now went to a video titled, “Belly of the Beast,” this one starting from a first-person perspective in a wooded area.
“Do you title all of your videos after songs?” Hull asked after noticing the pattern.
“I gave them titles to correlate to the events,” Bellham shot back. Hull remained silent for all of two minutes as the video continued, Bellham’s commentary of events being nothing more than a buzzing in his ear.
“Are you always so dramatic when pursuing potential criminals?”
“Are you always so rude?”
Hull stifled at the snap, but only for a moment. “Ask Lennox.”
The video continued on until finally, Bellham came to an area where a voice that seemed to echo spoke back to him. They exchanged few words before Bellham turned to see a tall figure, wearing a rather formal suit and tie. It would’ve been an odd sight in the forest alone, but the fact that the figure’s face was devoid of any features certainly added to the oddity. Bellham paused the video on the figure and glanced up at Hull.
“That is the thing. Around the Internet, it’s commonly known as–”
“Slender Man. I’m familiar.”
Yeah. If only you knew how much more familiar you would become in about seven months when I would make you play the Slender game.
“Right. Well, this thing was able to abduct people without leaving a trace, except for a camera we found at one scene.”
“We?”
Bellham resumed the video. In the footage, he turned to flee but appeared to be caught by the thing, which proceeded to drag him. It only managed to drag him for a meter or so before a gunshot echoed. The camera turned to face another man holding a gun, looking to be about Bellham’s age but not so uncaring with the facial hair. The clothes were relatively the same, though.
“That is Tom Haney, my friend and cameraman. He assisted me for most of the filming,” Bellham stated.
“And where is he now? Why is he not here with you to present your case?”
“Tom wasn’t too happy with the way things panned out.” Bellham resumed the video, letting both men watch as in-video-Bellham took the gun from Haney and ran out into a field, where he once again encountered the Slender Man-esque individual. Bellham seemed to confront the thing before the camera’s view became distorted. Once the view returned, the thing was now in front of Bellham.
“That’s very cinematic, but what really happened?” Hull asked.
“If I knew, I would tell you. It was like a blur. One second it was halfway across the field, then it was there. I remember getting lightheaded but it didn’t walk up to me, that’s for sure.”
“What did you inevitably call it? Slender Man?”
“I took to calling it the Lithe Livery Wanderer.”
Hull scoffed. “Still cinematic. Why that?”
“It just... fit, I guess.”
They continued to watch as the Wanderer struck Bellham and knocked him out of the way, once again resulting in the feed cutting out. When it came back, Haney, now holding the camera, had fallen, and the Wanderer was looming over him. Just as the thing moved in to attack, Bellham latched on from behind and the camera fell to the side.
“Why did your friend let go of the camera?”
“It wasn’t voluntary. Tom passed out.”
The video continued for a few seconds more, showing Bellham attack the Wanderer once more before being forced to the ground as the camera cut out.
“Explain to me the technical difficulties,” Hull asked as Bellham closed the laptop.
“I wish I could. Somehow, that thing was consistently able to disrupt standard cameras, video cameras, phones.”
“What happened after that, then?”
“It left. Tom was already unconscious and as it walked away, I passed out too.”
“Why?”
“Why did it leave or why did I pass out?”
“As if you know why it left. What caused both of you to be incapacitated?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I felt lightheaded. It all went downhill from there.”
Hull looked from the closed laptop to Bellham, eyes narrowed and mind racing. There were any number of potential possibilities to explain the situation, but without further data, he wouldn’t be able to have a definite theory. Before he could ask any additional questions, Lennox returned, now holding a box of files. Hull and Bellham stood as the inspector set the box down, spreading the files across the table.
“What noticeable consistencies are there in this thing’s victims?” Hull questioned as he opened one of the files, that of a man just a few years older than Hull, commonly known as a hiker.
“None,” Lennox replied as he set the box under the table. “The victims have been cross-county and have no correlation to each other. One of the victims was with her boyfriend at the time. She went missing, he ended up in a coma. He managed to make a drawing of it, which I passed on to Bellham in November.”
“Where is the drawing?” Hull asked as he grabbed the next file.
Bellham pulled a copy from one of the files and handed it to Hull. It was essentially an elongated version of the figure from the video. Blank face, formal suit, except the drawing’s hands looked to have sharpened fingers.
“So the Wanderer took his girlfriend and not him,” Lennox stated.
“This thing has no logical consistency in who it takes, then. The abductions aren’t random enough to be akin to that of a serial killer,” Hull said as he closed the file and looked at Bellham. “You and your friend encountered the thing, and yet here you are, not missing, not in a comatose state. So why did it spare you?”
“That’d be nice to know, wouldn’t it?” Bellham retorted as he tucked the drawing copy back inside a file. “For some reason, it spared us. Maybe we weren’t its type, maybe we didn’t do something the others did.”
“Well, let’s take a look at what possible predispositions there could be,” Lennox commented as he arranged the files.
“The victims are too diverse. Age, race, gender, it has no foundation to act on,” Hull acknowledged.
Lennox licked his lips as he stared down at the files. “Well what about sexuality? Could there have been something to the victims?”
“You think a nine-year-old boy has already discovered his sexuality?” Hull countered.
“It’s not sexuality,” Bellham added. “He let Tom be, but he also let me be, and you won’t catch me barking up a woman’s tree. Gay and damn proud of it.”
Before Hull or Lennox could reply, a new voice entered the mix and added their own opinion.
“He better not be picking targets based on sexuality, or he’s going to give me even more reason to put him behind bars for life.”
The three men turned to see the newcomer, a Latino woman in a striped suit with a red blouse. She stood eye to eye with Hull and had a gaze just as fierce and determined. She approached Hull with a half-smirk and extended her hand.
“Catherine Blackmore, “she said as Hull accepted the handshake, “I’m McMullen County’s district attorney. You should know me, Detective. I’m the one constantly cleaning up your messes. Thank you for stealing a government vehicle from PDX in November, by the way. I spent weeks vouching for you after that. And don’t think I’ve forgotten the incident at the Newfield Zoo. They’re still hassling me about that damn sea turtle’s shell.”
“Seems clear you’re already familiar with who I am,” Hull replied.
“Mark Bellham,” she said as she turned to the man. “I’ve reviewed your videos. I commend you for your attempt at bravery, but if you lived in my county, I’d probably hate you for making more of a visible attempt to bring justice than the entirety of your own county.”
“I do what I can, Miss,” Bellham stated.
“To what do we owe the pleasure, Mrs. Blackmore?” Lennox asked as he took her hand.
“I’m not here on happy terms, Greg. We’ve got people going missing left and right and their family members aren’t happy. DAs in Lane, Linn, and Benton have voicemail inboxes filled with messages from those families because they want to see progress be made on this case. The lack of results from the police is discouraging.”
“With Hull on the case, we’ll have the results they want,” Lennox insisted, giving Hull a glance that screamed for assurance.
“I should hope so, Inspector. These abductions may not be taking place in my district but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help. Especially when the other official peacekeepers seem fairly inept at doing their jobs.”
“If they strike you as inept, I cannot imagine the Newfield Police Department will be any more impressive,” Hull jeered.
Blackmore looked at him with pursed lips. “You’d do well to remember who it is granting you access to confidential case files, Detective. Without Inspector Lennox, your options here would be rather limited, wouldn’t they?” With that, the district attorney turned and walked from the room, leaving Hull with a curled nose, Lennox with a cheeky grin, and Bellham looking from one man to the other in anticipation of some form of argument.
As far as I’m aware, no such argument occurred, but again, I wasn’t present. The details come straight from the horse’s mouth. The subjective, biased horse, that is.
Hull slid back over to the table, eyes perusing the files once more. Nothing reached out to him, no correlation that could be discerned without either visiting the scene or observing a body. And since he was rather lacking in the second regard, he was left with one option.
“I’d like to visit the area where you encountered the Wanderer,” Hull said to Bellham, who grimaced at the thought.
“I’d, uh.. prefer not to revisit there,” the man replied, his voice almost monotonous.
“I hate to say it, but Hull’s right. We need to visit the last known scene, since the boy who went missing this morning left his home without informing either of his parents. We have to retrace this thing’s steps as best we can.”
Bellham sighed. “I’m not comfortable with this, but okay.”
*
It took roughly an hour for Hull, Lennox, Bellham, and two accompanying police officers to reach the field where Bellham and his friend Haney had encountered the Slender Man-esque individual. The weather was about the same as it had been in Bellham’s video, except the sky was a little less gray and not so foreboding of bad weather. If Bellham was right, they were standing exactly where he had been when the Wanderer had attacked him.
“How close is the nearest residence?” Hull asked as he stooped down to examine the grass.
Lennox glanced over the nearest hill, eyes peered. “Probably one mile.” Bellham nodded in agreement.
Hull stood with a blade of grass in his hand. “Can one of you tell me which animal this Wanderer most resembles?”
“I’m sorry?” Bellham questioned, his brow furrowed.
“The question is rather simple. We are not but the most evolved of mammals, yet at our core, we still hold the same animalistic traits of our counterparts. I believe that when one begins a spree of murder, they awaken a piece of that core that resides in an active predator. Their victims are their prey, and as such, the killer will often emulate the same behaviors as a specific type of predator. So, which animal does the Wanderer most resemble?”
“...I really don’t follow,” Bellham said, causing Lennox to sigh.
“That’s exactly what he wants you to say,” the inspector added. “It strokes his ego.”
Hull ignored the jab as he dropped the grass blade. “The Wanderer is not territorial, else it would have attacked us by now. That, and the people who have gone missing have done so in very diverse locations across the county. The Wanderer moves around to find its prey, going from a potential comfort zone and possibly returning home with the prey in hand.”
“If you keep comparing that thing to an animal, I’m going to start writing ‘possible cannibal’ on the police reports,” Lennox commented.
“Oregon is not near interesting enough to harbor cannibals,” Hull shot back as his eyes caught something in the grass.
“Tell that to the Donner party,” Bellham added.
Hull, however, was far more focused on the object that was now becoming more shapely as he approached it. He stooped down and picked up a pistol, the same one he had seen in Bellham’s video. In fact, he’d last seen it get knocked from Bellham’s hand by the Wanderer. He turned with the gun and showed it to Bellham and Lennox, the prior now wearing a shocked look.
“You’d think I would’ve remembered Tom’s gun going missing,” the man commented as he and Lennox stepped forward.
“You had a fairly legitimate reason not to remember, judging by your video,” Hull replied as he looked over the gun. “Though it should be noted that the gun was not anywhere near a potential landing place as shown in your video. The gun would have flown at least twenty feet.”
“You think the Wanderer touched it?” Lennox asked.
“Not only do I think it touched the gun,” Hull responded, turning to show the bottom of the gun and displaying the lack of an ammunition clip, “it also made sure to remove any way of Bellham or Haney from waking and using it against itself.”
Lennox pulled an evidence bag from his coat pocket and took the gun. “We’ll take it back and check for prints. Hopefully we’ll find something other than Bellham and Haney’s.”
Hull turned and looked back in the direction of the house, but as he had turned, something had caught his eye once more, this being in the direction of the trees just right of the house. If his memory of Bellham’s video was correct, those trees were where Haney had initially shot at the Wanderer. Though there was nothing present anymore, he was absolutely certain he had seen some sort of a suited figure next to one of the trees.
The detective turned to look at Bellham. “In your video, you tore away a drawing that was pinned to a tree. Do you still have it?”
“I’d have to check. It might be in my other coat pocket.”
Lennox looked at him with doubt. “You own multiples of that same coat?”
“They’re different makes,” Bellham replied defensively. “I have some diversity to my clothes.”
I watched the videos. Everything he wore was of Carhartt make.
As Hull turned back, he once again caught something at the corner of his eye, only visible for a moment in the trees. This time he was absolutely certain it had been a suited individual without a discernible face. He started slowly in the tree’s direction, cautious to keep vigilant in case it was the Wanderer, and in case it decided to attack.
“Hull?” Lennox called after him, but he did not stop. He continued on to the exact tree where he’d seen the peripheral vision, and at the foot of a tree, he found what looked like a horribly mutilated fox. Jammed into the fox’s mouth was a handheld radio. Hull glanced over the fox, noting that none of the wounds were inflicted by a knife he was familiar with. He stooped down and grabbed the radio from its mouth, quickly stuffing it into a bag of his own and pocketing it as Lennox and Bellham reached him.
“If possible, I would like to see the camera you recovered,” Hull asked as he turned to the other men. “I believe you mentioned it in your own report, correct?”
“I did, and I can bring it,” Bellham affirmed.
“Excellent. There is nothing left of value to find here, I am afraid. Evidence is minimal.”
“So what, we just call it a day?” Lennox snapped.
“Unless you can think of something else for us to do, Inspector, I believe our options are rather limited,” Hull countered as he stepped past the two men. Slowly but surely they followed him, and only once did he pause to look back. And when he did, he was certain once more that the visage of a suited man had been next to the tree before quickly disappearing.
Though the rest of the day had been rather uneventful, the evening had not quite been so for Hull. Walker had returned and had chosen to turn in early, while Hull had brought home several of the different files on the missing persons. Still he could find no connection, no matter how hard he tried. He took the names and key details from each individual and put them on a mental web and did his best to connect them, but nothing truly correlated. Now is one of few times a chalkboard would be handy. He stood and marched the room, his hands clasped behind his back.
As the clock approached 11 PM, he had yet to make any significant progress. But when the radio he’d taken started emitting a weird crackling sound, he felt his stomach lurch at the potential. He grabbed the radio and waited a moment to see if anything would come through before he pressed down the side button.
“Who is this?” he asked, holding the radio in front of him. No response came immediately, but he was patient. The radio continued to crackle for a minute longer before an eerie silence fell. He stared at the radio with pierced eyes, bringing it closer to his face.
The bloodcurdling scream that burst from the radio caused Hull to jump, his chair screeching on the floor as it slid back. It only lasted for a second, but it was loud enough to no doubt damage the radio’s speaker, causing it to emit a dull buzz, which only ceased when he turned the radio off. The scream itself echoed in his head, bouncing between his ears and allowing him to soak in the minor details. He knew it had come from a young boy. He knew it had been in a small room.
And he knew with certainty that it had been a scream that came before a painful death.
*
Hull had promptly reported to Lennox and Bellham the next morning, giving them every vivid detail about the radio and the single message it had relayed to him. Lennox had no doubt that the scream had come from the boy who had gone missing the day before, but because it was nothing more than a handheld, there was no way to backtrace it to the source.
The three sat around the table topped with missing persons reports, with a fully-detailed report on the missing boy from yesterday now added to the pile. Bellham held the camera he had recovered, the one belonging to an individual named Kyle Cortan. He had also brought the pictures he’d been able to salvage from the camera, which were few. Hull had taken an interest in one picture in particular, the one displaying a campsite.
“I know that view,” he said as he passed the picture to Lennox. “The city in the background is Corvallis from a western point. The hiker was illegally staying at his own site on Mary’s Peak.”
“So we know the general area of where he was, but that was months ago,” Lennox commented.
“Even so, it is important to note the distance between the locations. Bellham and Haney encountered the Wanderer twenty miles south of Cortan’s campsite,” Hull said as he stood.
“So you were right is what you’re getting to. It doesn’t stay in one spot,” Bellham asserted.
Hull moved over to the Oregon map on the wall, grabbing a bowl of push pins as he went. He pushed one pin into a point west of Mary’s Peak, then another pin into place at the southeastern tip of the Siuslaw National Forest. “These were the first two victims, and they are thirty-five miles apart.” He pushed another pin in, this one on the east face of Mary’s Peak. “This was Cortan’s campsite. The fourth victim, a young woman, went missing twenty-five miles south of him. Both were inside a half-perimeter of the first two.”
He added the fourth pin at the specified point, then pulled some string from the nearby desk and started linking the pins together. “The young girl who went missing while you, Bellham, were investigating,” he said as he added a fifth pin, “was once again inside the perimeter and was fifteen miles from your site. Emily Clinton was killed five miles from you, and again, inside the perimeter.”
“So it’s been working inside a certain area?” Lennox asked. “He really does have a territory?”
“To an extent,” Hull replied as he added the correlating pins. “The latest abduction was five miles from the previous girl’s abduction. The Wanderer hasn’t been working in a perimeter so much as it’s narrowing the field of potential victims. It’s been slowly working its way east by moving in a jagged path, steadily coming closer together on its north and south points. The points seem to suggest it will end here.” He pointed to a green patch that bordered Highway 99W.
“That’s the William L. Finley Wildlife Refuge,” Bellham stated as he stood up, coming to look at the map.
“Then it would be safe to assume the Wanderer intends to use the refuge as its hunting grounds,” Hull said as he tied the last string down.
“How do we stop that?” Lennox questioned, now standing at Hull’s side. “Do we close the refuge?”
“Close the refuge and you let on that we know of its intentions. It may slip back into hiding and we will never find it.” Hull glanced back at the missing persons files. “If we were to wait and see what it does next, we would stand a better chance at catching it.”
“No,” Lennox scolded. “I won’t use someone as bait. It’s not even in our area of standard jurisdiction, this decision isn’t ours to make.”
“And yet here we are, Inspector, poking and prodding in the business of Benton County,” Hull retorted.
“I’m not using someone as bait!” Lennox barked.
Before Hull could snap back, the radio Hull had placed on the table started to chirp. The three men turned to silently face it, their faces going still. The radio continued to chirp before a weird breathing started, almost immediately replaced by an echoing voice.
“LEAVE ME ALONE.”
As soon as the voice had ended, another nightmarish scream burst from the radio’s small speaker. This scream was feminine and sharp, coming from a very young girl. The radio returned to silence, and as it did, Lennox started around the table, his hand going for his phone.
“What does that mean?” Bellham asked, looking to Hull. The detective had yet to look away from the radio, a distinct chill still working its way through his system.
“I’m calling the Benton County Sheriff’s Department now,” Lennox said, pressing the phone to his ear.
“Did it get someone else? How does it know we found the radio?” Bellham interrogated, eyes going from Hull to Lennox.
“It knows because it was there yesterday,” Hull said solemnly, gaze rising from the radio. “It watched us investigate and it placed the radio in a place we would find it.”
“How do you know it was there?” Bellham pried.
“I saw it,” the detective divulged, now drawing Lennox’s attention.
“Let me get this straight,” the inspector started. “Not only did you take evidence from the crime scene, you also saw the suspect? And you decided to keep it to yourself?”
“It wasn’t relevant.”
“I don’t give a damn whether you thought it was relevant or not, you tell me these things when I’m having you consult for me!”
“Well I apologize, mother, but I did not deem it relevant nor important,” Hull chided. “Besides, I believe you have just yelled at the Benton County Sheriff.”
Lennox gave him a perplexed look before glancing down at his phone, which was still in a call. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you,” he said into the phone as he turned away from Hull. He listened to the phone for nearing a minute before he thanked the sheriff and turned back, finding Hull in a chair and Bellham against the wall.
“Six-year-old girl was taken from her room this morning,” Lennox reported as he pocketed the phone.
“Where did she live?” Hull asked, grabbing his coat.
“Highway 99W, bordering the east side of the refuge.”
Bellham picked up his hat from the table. “What sets this one apart?”
“She fought back.”
*
Hull stood in the center of the small, pink-walled room, his eyes drifting from item to item. The bed’s comforter was thrown on the floor, the sheets tussled, the pillows slashed. The single window above the bed was open, its curtains swaying in the gentle breeze. One of the two bed posts was chipped at, with blood spattered on the mantle itself. There was also minor signs of blood on the windowsill.
“Well, we can rule one thing out now,” Hull said as he stepped over to the bed.
“What’s that?” Lennox asked.
The detective pointed at the blood on the windowsill. “See how the blood comes in from the window? The Wanderer cut itself breaking the glass. That’s not the girl’s blood, unless she attempted to climb back in. We are indeed dealing with something human, not some monster everyone seems to be building it up to be.”
“I never said I thought it was a monster,” Lennox asserted.
“You may not have said you thought it, but you certainly thought it,” Hull snapped as he leaned closer to the windowsill. “If the girl struggled, you’ll have to identify which blood belongs to her and which belongs to the Wanderer, so I would suggest sweeping the entirety of the room. As well, you should take a hair sample from the pillows.”
Lennox snapped his finger and pointed to the locations, which the officers in the room began to swab. As they worked, Hull moved to examine the drawings on the desk in the room. Nothing was suggestive of the Wanderer stalking her prior to taking her. Nothing in the room was really indicative of her being anything special and warranting the taking. But a trend was certainly starting to form.
“Mr. Bellham, can you tell me what the Wanderer has started doing?” Hull tested as he gingerly picked up a handful of the pictures.
Bellham, eyes initially locked on the blood, gave a thick gulp before speaking. “You were right about the refuge.”
“Yes, but that is secondary. That is a location. What is he doing in specific?”
Lennox glanced over his shoulder at the two men to see Hull grabbing the pictures one by one. “He’s being more aggressive?”
“Gentlemen,” Hull sighed as he showed them the pictures, “the predator has found its optimal prey. Take note of the ages of those who have gone missing. Steadily, the ages have decreased until finally, it took an adolescent. When it went against Bellham and Haney, it spared them. When Clinton confronted it, the Wanderer killed her. But the children? It likes the children, and it takes the children.”
“What does it do with them?” Bellham pondered, a look of fear casting itself over his eyes.
“I consider myself a realist rather than an optimist,” Hull informed as he set the pictures down. “As such, my presumption is not the ideal one.”
“How do you stop something that has a working radius of ten miles from taking children when they’re sleeping?” Bellham pried.
“You find its den,” the detective replied.
“Will you stop using your animal comparisons?” Lennox hissed as he pulled out his phone. “I’m going to ask Blackmore to get us approval to close and search the refuge. If we don’t find this thing soon... I don’t even want to think of what’ll happen.”
“I can tell you exactly what will happen,” Hull started.
“Don’t. You give too much fuel for the imagination,” Lennox snapped as he pressed the phone to his ear. He then stepped out of the room with the officers, leaving Hull and Bellham alone.
“You don’t believe me when I say it’s human,” Hull stated, his eyes on a toy chest spilling with toy horses.
“I’m not quite sure our definition of human matches,” Bellham confessed.
Hull looked up at him with inquisitive eyes. “You think someone who steals children, and a handful of adults, to do God only knows what with them is no longer human?”
“You’re the one who keeps comparing it to an animal.”
“Fair enough. Though I make my comparisons so as to simplify the truth for people who may not want to hear it.”
“And what’s that truth?”
“The fact that we are dealing with an individual who may be deranged in ways we would rather not consider. The vast scope of human ability as a result of thought goes both ways. Where one person can use that ability to cure disease, another can use it to implement biological atrocities. Where one person can save lives, another can take them.”
Bellham gave the detective a look of both interest and disdain. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“I’m reminded constantly.”
Lennox reentered the room, pocketing his phone and looking hopeful.” Blackmore’s going to work with the county office to close the refuge. They’ll get a party together to search the place. If it’s in there, they’ll find it. Until then, all we can do is wait.”
And wait they did. Even though Hull wouldn’t talk about the case with me at the time, I knew he was anxious to have results. Is it spoiling of me to say they didn’t find anything? Yes? Oh well. They didn’t find anything.
Two days passed without progress, and by the third day, another child had been taken, this one living northwest of the refuge. At this point, the counties had started to become desperate, with Blackmore and the other district attorneys being placed in front of cameras to issue public statements every morning and night. Hull, Lennox, and Bellham found themselves in their meeting room once more, with the first man’s focus being prioritized on the map.
“Not a single thing to suggest someone’s been living in the refuge,” Lennox groaned. “Almost six thousand acres scoured without anything coming up.”
“We were wrong,” Hull announced as he marched at the board. In a swift motion, he pulled a push pin and a line of string from the desk and attached them to the map. He stepped back to reveal that the web of missing persons made a perimeter, which centered in on a location west of the refuge. “We weren’t looking in the right place.”
“That’s the middle of nowhere,” Lennox stated.
“What better place to hide?” Hull responded.
“The more false leads we follow, the more time this thing gets to grab children,” Lennox added.
“Stop calling it a thing, this isn’t a thing, it’s a person. As soon as we discern a gender, if it even identifies by one, you may address it as such, but it is not a thing,” Hull snapped. “We need to go to whatever is at this exact spot.”
And so they did. The trio departed with Lennox at the wheel, venturing to the place roughly ten miles north of where Bellham and Haney had encountered the Wanderer. The location itself was two miles from any public access road, meaning they’d have to walk the rest of the way. After managing to navigate their way over a creek and up a thoroughly-foliaged hill, they found themselves at what could’ve been a clearing many decades ago, with a very small, very abandoned home resting in the center.
The house itself couldn’t have been any younger than sixty years old, with several parts of the ceiling having collapsed, all of the windows shattered, the doors missing, and shrubbery growing up the sides. From a distance, they could hear sounds of movement, as well as, of all things, meowing. Upon delicately entering the building, they found not quite what they were looking for, but a sight nonetheless.
“I do not like cats,” Bellham stated as he stepped into the room.
Cats upon cats upon cats. There had to be at least six or seven dozen cats of all ages occupying the home’s remains. Some looked quite feral, but others were very tame, even approaching and rubbing against the newcomers’ legs.
“Okay, predator profiler,” Lennox started, his eyes on the calico at his feet. “What do you make of this?”
“A very, very eccentric obsession,” Hull replied, crouching down to pet two black-and-white kittens that had warmed up to him. “An escape, perhaps. Even the worst of serial killers maintain some aspects that are seen as normal, or else they would be far more obvious.”
“It chose to keep cats as a way of, what?” Bellham started, his nose curled in disgust. “Keeping a hold on sanity?”
“You know how they say you can identify serial killer traits at a young age? Perhaps a child takes joy in killing small animals, as it gives them a sense of dominance?” Hull piqued.
“Yeah,” Lennox replied.
“The Wanderer takes. It abducts. I would not be surprised to learn that many of these cats have gone missing from their homes. Some still have their tags,” Hull pointed out as he picked up the two kittens.
“So instead of calling back and saying we found the Wanderer,” Lennox moaned, “I have to tell them we found an abandoned house full of cats.”
“Unless you want to leave them all here, which I consider rude,” Hull jeered, letting one of the kittens perch itself on his shoulder.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting attached to them,” Lennox warned.
“As a matter of fact, I believe I am,” the detective replied, feeling the kitten in his arms start to purr. “I think I’ll call this one Mittens.”
He kept them both. Mittens and Molly, he called them. Mrs. Hanson took care of them most of the time, and they weren’t fond of the stairs, so I didn’t see much of them. But last I knew, Mrs. Hanson had taken them with her.
“I’ll make a call to animal control,” Lennox stated, “but I’m not happy that this was a dead end.”
“It’s not,” Hull said as he started through the cats towards a very damaged table. Pinned to the table was a piece of paper similar to the one Bellham had found in his video. On the paper was a drawing of a map, using the same pen from before. It couldn’t have been drawn more than an hour earlier, as Hull could smudge the ink easily with his finger.
“It drew us a map?” Bellham inquired.
Lennox took the map and started back towards the door. “Then we follow it now and we catch this thing.”
“It’s not a thing,” Hull repeated as he followed.
The map led them another two miles west, still under a heavy array of trees. As they crossed over another creek, they found themselves approaching what appeared to be an abandoned mansion. The windows weren’t quite as broken, and the doors were still in place, but the natural vines working their way up the walls had to be old, considering how they were layered.
The first thing to reach Hull other than the sight was the smell. Pungent, odorous, and very familiar. The building practically emanated a wave of the smell, one Hull was used to at this point. Rotting flesh had a distinct stench. As they walked closer, homemade signs started to reveal themselves along the pathway, all of them saying “KEEP OUT.” The sign’s homemade feel came from the way they were written in dried blood.
“Remember what I told you?” Hull asked, his voice directed at Bellham. “About the vastness of human ability?” Bellham nodded. “Now would be a time to prepare yourself for a particularly low notch on the scale. I suspect our Wanderer has an inkling for the macabre.”
They approached the front doors slowly, Lennox’s pistol in hand, Hull at the lead, Bellham’s eyes going from window to window. There were neither sight nor sound to give them reason to be on alert, but they were prepared nonetheless. Hull pushed the doors open slowly, listening as their creaking echoed through the next room. They entered what appeared to be an atrium, possibly once very ornate before the house’s deterioration began. It seemed, though, that the Wanderer had made his own renovations.
Hanging above them, with arms bound and secured to the second story balcony, was the body of a man forced into a crucified pose. His head was tilted back, but the trio could still clearly see that his neck had been carved open. His clothes had been stripped and his genitalia had been removed, with all new orifices causing the blood to drain and remain in a dried puddle on the floor.
“And so we have our missing hiker,” Hull declared as he slowly stepped forward. Lennox and Bellham followed him at a quick pace, the latter man’s face having gone a very ghostly pale. The next room was a kitchen/dining room combination, the chandelier shattered, the home appliances destroyed. The dining table was one of few things still intact, and that was without a doubt by the Wanderer’s design. As were the bodies that sat in the chairs.
Three of them, one female, two males. All of them stripped bare like the hiker, all of them having their genitalia removed, or in the female’s case, eviscerated. Their necks were also carved open, but the Wanderer’s way of making them sit upright was by far more intricate. The heads were lowered at an acute angle as a result of the javelin-like objects stabbed through their upper necks and down into their backs, jutting out from the bottom of the chairs and forcing the bodies to remain erect. As they came closer, they could see that the woman’s stomach had also been gutted.
“The other three missing adults?” Hull proposed, his nostrils flared.
“Yeah,” Lennox gulped.
Before any of them could continue, a loud bang echoed from somewhere below, causing all three men to duck. They moved quickly, looking for some sort of doorway that would lead them downstairs. Eventually Bellham found it, and so the three men slowly started down into an area which none of them would be quick to forget.
And so we reach why Hull was so keen to not mention the case.
The sight was, in short, horrific. The basement was possibly fifteen feet wide and forty feet long, with a ceiling about twenty feet up. The lighting in the room was a dull red, some from the candles, mostly from the décor. Lining the walls, three each, were the bodies of children, their hands and feet nailed to keep them in place, their necks slashed, but their entities clothed. Four of them matched the descriptions of the missing children. The other two were new.
As far as the trio could tell, the ages ranged between six and ten.
At the opposite end of the basement, writhing on the floor, was a suited figure. A pool of blood had started to accumulate near the figure’s head. The trio came to stand above the figure, which matched the description of the Wanderer. As it turned out, the Wanderer was in fact a man, bald and pale and difficult to identify as a result of a poorly-fired shotgun blast that had destroyed half of his face. His good eye looked up at the trio before rolling into the back of his head, just before the writhing had ceased.
The body had fallen from a chair which was next to a desk. On the desk’s top was a crude carving that said, “MY CHILDREN.” Upon opening the desk drawers, they found blood-crusted organs, ranging from exterior to interior ones, tongues to livers, intestines to eyeballs. In the bottom drawer was a journal, with the earliest dated entry being in 1980, and the last being in 2011. There was no mention of a name.
“Are you happy with your results, Inspector,” Hull murmured, not so much a question but rather a taunt, a tease, a reminder that Lennox’s insistence had brought them to this. But so long as they had investigated, they never would have escaped this eventuality. They’d learned the truth.
“I’ll go make the call,” Lennox uttered as he turned. Bellham pressed his hands against the desk, his face pale and clammy.
“In this line of work,” Hull started, “it is important to remember why you do what you do. Had you not been interested, you never would have made your videos, and as such, you would not have attracted the attention of the county. This man may have continued unobstructed. In a way, you are responsible for the saved lives of potentially many children.”
“That doesn’t really put me at ease,” Bellham replied softly, his voice shaking.
“I didn’t say it to put you at ease, I said it to tell you the truth. You’re an investigator, Bellham. A detective. You don’t work with the prime of society. You work with its rejects.”
Bellham gave a very stark chuckle. “Now I’m wishing I’d just gone into engineering like my family suggested.”
“You wouldn’t have entered this line of work if you weren’t prepared. And considering you have made it this far, I cannot think of a reason for you to double back.”
With that, Hull turned from the room and started for the stairs, leaving the Hellish scene to be nothing more than a memory.
*
The police spent the next two days completely cross-sectioning the house of horrors. Their analysis and investigation led to the identifying of the two additional children, as well as the returning of the bodies to their respective families. Lennox had called Hull in on the 20th to give him a complete report on the incident.
The Wanderer had yet to be identified, but basic information had been obtained. The man had been forty-six years old at the time of his death. He was infertile, a mute, and the police report had branded him as a psychopath. They were able to retrace his steps and found that he had started his tirade in Astoria, Oregon, slowly working his way southeast and killing people who provoked him. Once he had reached the Willamette Valley, he discovered his liking for children and instead focused on their abductions.
Hull believed they filled a void in the man.
Upon detailed analysis of the bodies, they found that the necks had been cut open and the vocal chords had been forcibly removed. The department’s psychological profiler believed this was the Wanderer’s first way of making them all equal. This is also displayed in his removal of the reproductive organs, including the visceral removal of the woman’s uterus. He sought to make them like him.
The children were killed as a way to make them obedient. Dead is much easier to deal with than alive, after all. The adults, minus the hiker, had been propped up in the kitchen to resemble a family. But even then, it bordered on them being nothing more than décor for the Wanderer, just like the hiker’s being turned into a human ceiling mount.
In short, the man was living in a very deranged, self-constructed fantasy, where he was no longer envious of the privileges granted to others rather than him. In his world, they were all sterile and mute. They were all equal.
It turned out that the Wanderer was in fact a bit of a technological savant, as the police discovered a small box hidden inside one of his inner pockets. After dismantling the box, they discovered it was a portable transmission disruption emitter. It could effectively disturb any and all electronic devices within a certain radius. They also find a microphone linking its way up to his lapel, its home device being in another pocket and the voice being augmented and sent to speakers he had installed in trees near where Bellham had been.
Then, of course, there was the interesting choice in clothing. As far as they could tell, it was simply his way of adopting a look associated with fear. Without him being alive, there was no definitive way to determine why he had chosen the attire, meaning there was a sliver of possibility that he had in fact picked it as a result of his own imaginative creation. Of course, that did not keep the news from saying, “Slender Man Killer Caught!”
The profiler believed his opting for suicide could have been to prevent capture, but Hull believed otherwise. The detective believed that, in his last moments, the Wanderer had been granted a window of sanity, and with that window, he had both drawn the map to lead the police to him, and decided that his life was one of horror and treachery, and no longer one worth living. Hull believed that the man had attempted to enact a form of punishment on himself and closure to those he had slain.
After that, Hull had returned home, and was surprised when Bellham had decided to pay him a visit. He hadn’t expected to see the man again, not so soon, not ever.
“I just wanted to thank you, I guess,” the man said as he sat across from Hull. “I mean, without you, none of this would’ve been possible. I would’ve beat myself up over letting the thing get away... and you were right. We did make a difference.”
“I’m glad to have helped bring you some closure on the subject,” Hull replied with a smile. “And I’m glad to have worked with you.”
“And you too,” Bellham said as he shook the detective’s hand. “I know the odds of us working together again are slim, but I hope I can someday be the caliber of detective you are. Since meeting you, I’ve heard some pretty amazing stuff.”
“To the future, then,” Hull quipped as he settled back in to the seat.
“To the future,” Bellham repeated. He stood, gave the detective a salute, and walked from the room to the stairs. Hull waited until he heard the downstairs door close before he leaned over the chair’s side, picking up a pile of mail and setting it on the end table next to him. He lifted the pile up and pulled a newspaper-wrapped item from the bottom, carefully setting it on his lap.
He tore the newspaper away to reveal the Wanderer’s journal, a little souvenir he’d kept. He’d peered over the first few pages and knew it wouldn’t contain anything of use to the police, and besides, he found it intriguing to have a glimpse at the thoughts of a deranged man. As he set the mail aside, a pamphlet fell from the top, one that was a disgusting blue with a slogan that read, “We Are Here To Protect You,” slapped across the top. He disregarded the pamphlet, opened the journal to its first entry, and began to read.