The Refugees
Friday 18 May 2012
We're starting again on a new blog
We're starting over. If you're in, come follow us again:
http://intheabsenceoftruth.blogspot.co.uk/
Thursday 29 December 2011
The Truth
Sunday 25 December 2011
We're in Roland's car. He's laid out in the back, his midsection covered in bandages and his arm...
...I have no idea what I'm going to do with his arm. He needs a doctor, but we're never staying still enough to risk another hospital scene again.
I'm never saying still again.
I'm never trusting anywhere again.
We spent our Christmas driving. He hasn't woken up.
Saturday 24 December 2011
"... In other news, we are getting reports of a massive fire in Avondale, Missouri. It seems that most of the city has been destroyed in the middle of a major parade. No word yet on the origins of the explosion or explosions..."
"...more now on the fire in Avondale, we can confirm that the fire is currently being fought, and rescue teams are at the scene from Kansas City, but have been unable to locate any survivors...I'm sorry, that's any bodies...what? David, can be get a check on that?..."
"...More information from the Avondale fire, it seems that, in spite of most of the town centre being in flames, including the floats and props for the parade, there's no-one in the town. No bodies, no survivors. If any survivors are listening, please contact emergency services to let us know that you're safe. The number is..."
"And once again, more reports of the Avondale fire, and you're going to want to send the children out of the room for this one. After fighting the blaze engulfing the city hall, firefighters have foung the entire building piled high with what looks like the bodies of the townsfolk. Estimates are counting in the hundreds. And...(oh my god)...it appears that their limbs have all been massively stretched. Every single one of them. More details as it unfolds."
Friday 23 December 2011
Thursday 22 December 2011
Parade!
I'm going with Natalie. She insisted that I take her, and I wasn't exactly unwilling. In my old life, a girl like her would never even look at me, but she...I dunno, sometimes, I feel like she genuinely likes me. It feels good. Accepting. And I'm hoping I'm past the whole "liking the idea of her, not her" part in that I've seen her covered in blood, we've travelled with one another for months, we've had a fistfight twice, and I'm pretty sure she's seen me pooping. I've always been terrible at telling whether someone likes me - to be honest, for a long time, I had the social ability of a sponge - but she's been fawned over by the prettiest preppy/jock types semi-urban Missouri has to offer, and she still gives me a hell of a vibe.
I read once that attraction is about demonstration of value. I hope it's not true - it certainly takes the sweetness out of the whole thing - but she's seen me fight for my life and not come out the loser, she's seen me trek all day without having to take a break, and, while I'm still kinda awkward, I'm more confident, assertive...I'm not such a bad specimen. How many Hollister model quarterbacks can run across entire countries in fear for months on end, and survive to tell the tale? I mean, I am entirely aware that this is probably wishful thinking. But maybe, just maybe, this is somewhere I can live. A nice town, an amazing, fun, intelligent, gorgeous girlfriend, maybe some pocket money from Roland until I can get a job...
Is it possible to have the Slender Man come after you and still, one day, have it all? After running for so long, facing death and terror so many times? Can we still come off okay?
That was a rhetorical question. PLEASE don't feel the need to answer it.
Monday 19 December 2011
Conversations
I had two really weird conversations today. I appreciate that this used to be a fairly standard slenderblog, but that chapter of my life is over, and so fuck it, this is a personal blog now.
The first one was with Natalie. We were wandering down the main road, where they're setting up for the parade - it's in a few days, on the evening of the 22nd, for the winter solstice. There's banners between the buildings, shops taking in stock. It's a good few days away, but already the hotels are pretty full. Fiona's having to serve to people she doesn't already know for the first time in her life - she gets incredibly nervous. On the night, she'll be working in her mask - she's decorated it by embroidering blue flowers onto it. Maybe it'll help, hiding behind something. She told me she thought so.
Even without the very good reason to stay here that the five of us have
Christ, I almost wrote seven there.
Even without it, I'd stay for Fiona. She looks so incredibly cute when she laughs, and she holds my hand, and it feels so good when she does. Having someone in my life who isn't tied to me by a certain long-limbed necessity for the first time in a while is weird. I told her about the Slender Man incident, but only like some scary story, like an urban legend passed around bonfires deep in the woods. Since then, I've even had a few others try and tell me the story again, and I know Simon and Natalie have too. Word gets around fast here.
So Natalie and I are walking down the road, looking at the store owners festooning their shops with decorations, and Natalie says "If you could have anywhere else be the one place we're safe, for whatever reason, where would it be?"
I thought about home. I thought about my family, who I know are still scared for me at home, and about my friends, and I thought about Nona, and whether I could live with being fine while she had died, at home surrounded by my loved ones while hers still mourned. I don't think I could. Here's the only place I've been to in months that has had anything for me. I shook my head, and Natalie smiled.
"My brother was killed by the Slender Man. My mother started drinking, and hasn't stopped. I don't want to go back there."
The second was with Shannon. We were talking about the citizenship - Roland's been talking with his guys - and I made a joke about how she was basically the mum of the group. She fell very quiet.
I asked what was wrong.
It was never Richard and her who were the original targets.
A long hospital corridor, and at one side, through a door, a tall, misshapen man standing over a crib, looking down at a new born baby, sound asleep.
One of the few memories she has of her child. Too much exposure to the Slender Man has damaged her mind enough to get rid of most of them. I've only seen her with the headaches once, but they were worse than any I've ever seen. She's been doing this too long. She's lost more than any of us.
Still, the festivities are coming up, and we're hoping to get out and about for them.
Though the masks are still creeping me out. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Sunday 11 December 2011
Sanctuary of a different sort
Now, the church is fully operational and regularly used. The Derosier residence is pretty much boarded up. No-one's been in there since Caleb Derosier, the last head of the curch, was arrested back in 1987, following the slenderization of his wife and daughter.
This said, we read an interesting tidbit in an old journal - that even before that, they'd already boarded up the basement, supposedly where the old, mad Lucas Derosier was locked away.
Oh come on. We couldn't not break in.
So we broke in.
At 3:30, we crept over. It was the night before church, so everyone was in bed early to be up for service. The church is pretty well away from the residential part of town, so we didn't disturb anyone as we went. Most of the old boards had rotted away from the nails holding them in place and we just lifted them off. Just enough to be able to crawl in. We'd pulled out the old maglites for the first time in a couple of months, and they lit up the inside of the old house like floodlights. As Natalie, Shannon, Rachel and I all got through, we looked around. The room still had the family's mess out after almost twenty-five years, like ruins preserved under a magma flow. Old magazines and books, a sturdy mahogany dinner table, a sizable kitchen. This would have been a nice house, at the time, but now everything was grimy and covered in dust. It smelt wet and dank, like old sodden rot. The larder in that kitchen was probably full of the results of twenty five years of decomposition. The family died here. This isn't a home, I told myself.
My torch found the stairs - one going to the first floor, one going down to the basement. We moved over to it quickly and headed down the stairs, but as I headed down I thought I caught a glimpse of crusted-over brown crimson on the floorboards, illuminated in the torchlight.
I flash back to that night in the hospital, and all the blood and sickness and horror and death and
I feel sick to my stomach.
There's two doors in the basement. One is open, and appears to be a boiler room. The other has great thick planks of wood across the door frame, that once would have barred entry. But, like the boards outside, they had decomposed to the point where they could be pulled off very easily.
Just a bedroom. Almost entirely bare. An empty wardrobe and chest of drawers. A bed frame with no mattress. The book made him seem like some mad prophet, some wizard. I half expected some massive charm to be scratched out on the floor, but nothing.
Another dead end.
What is it that makes this town so different?
Thursday 8 December 2011
Sanctuary
You're welcome.
Back to the library, I guess. If Buffy taught us one thing, it's that libraries are how you deal with any supernatural threats.