Glitch. Part 11

The water drummed my head. The hot water had sweated out most of the remaining alcohol, and cleaned off whatever gunk had been oiling my skin. But my mind still felt full of fog, and though I was still too nervous to sleep, actual thinking came hard.

I tried a few mental exercises. I failed them. I couldn't recall any speeches from Faust, nor could I remember any squared number series. That meant I currently had the working IQ of a rabbit; today I'd be useless for anything that didn't involve the internet.

The internet it was then.

I got out of the shower and toweled off. I wasn't in any shape to work, so I grabbed the phone and called my supervisor while I searched for undies in the clothes-dunes of my bedroom.

My supervisor, Tanya, was mad. She didn't say it, because we were a calm and considerate workplace, but I knew that my absence today would add another entry on the "improvements" section. Whatever-I wasn't trying to climb the corporate ladder. I just wanted to pay my rent.

After I finished with Tanya and found a cleanish outfit, I remembered my laptop was missing-stolen from last night.

So to balance karma, I stole Greg's laptop. He kept it under his bed, in the dark blue box it came in from Best Buy. I dragged it out, set it down on our kitchen table, and booted it as I turned the power on for our ancient, black plastic coffee machine.

While the machine gurgled to life, I guessed the pa.s.sword by running down a list of Greg's favorite things. I went through "Carrie," "watermelon," "Daft Punk" and "P90X" until correctly guessing "123456".

As I typed, the red light on the coffee machine's rear flickered on to let me know it was heated up. I ignored it, went to Google and typed in "level zero."

The results were a movie trailer and a Swedish electo-rock band.

I idly looked for a mug in the cupboard and pulled out one with a rooster on it because I liked roosters. I set the mug under the coffee maker and pushed the b.u.t.ton for a large cup.

The machine made noises like a thousand cats in a grain thresher. I went back to the computer.

I tried Google again with "blue glowing eyes." Horror movie links and unscary pictures came up. Web MD had nothing with blue eyes as a symptom.

A thin column of coffee poured from the machine's spout into my mug, spilling fresh-roast smell into the air. I set the mug down next to the laptop.

I stared at the Google logo some more.

Slowly, I typed in "stalker man."

Just a bunch of articles on stalkers.

I thought a bit more.

"Stalker man glowing eyes."

Two results came up. They were all from the same site: something called Creepy Pasta Wiki. Each of the Google items came from a conversation about one article, called "The Slender Man."

I clicked it.

Creepy Pasta Wiki was a standard Wikipedia-model. The site seemed to be dedicated to internet horror stories. The site had a blood-red background, and a lot of... interesting images. I saw a German Sheppard, grinning at me with a healthy set of human teeth.

The article I'd clicked was about something called The Slender Man-a fictional monster reportedly created as part of a contest on the Somethingawful forums. The Slender Man appeared as a freakishly tall man in a black suit and tie.

There were pictures: black and white images of children playing in playgrounds and parks where, in the background, a tall silhouette stood and watched. According to the article, The Slender Man hunted children.

I clicked the article history, and found the reference to the stalker man.

5 months ago (Nov 06)

MrSparkle (contributor)

Edits: added alternate names for slender man: man in black, stalker man, the rake

5 months ago (Nov 08)

JerJer (Admin)

Edits: deleted alternate names: men in black is for alien stories and stalker man are from the labyrinth mythos. just because they're similar doesn't mean it's an alias. stalker men have glowing eyes, no suits. And the rake is dog-like.

And that was it.

I googled just "stalker men" again. I scrolled through about twenty pages about relations.h.i.+ps and psychos.

My coffee was lukewarm now. I chugged half the mug and spilled the rest in the sink.

I went back to the Creepy Pasta discussion.

I googled "labyrinth mythos stalker men."

The first result was a TVTropes article called The Adjectival Man I knew about TV Tropes; another wiki-style website, it was dedicated to doc.u.menting recurring themes and tropes in movies and literature. It had taught me more about fiction than four years studying English at UTM.

This article described the naming formula "the+adjective+man" to come up with a generic scary name.

I scanned down the article to a list of works that used it.

Pan's Labyrinth's Pale Man uses this trope.

The Slender Man Mythos, featuring the Slender Man!

The Stalker Men from the Labyrinth stories.

I went into a Google freefall for another hour.

I bit my lip. I made another cup of coffee and drank it while I checked my email. There was one from Tanya and one from Rohit. I didn't open either of them.

It was eight o'clock now. My eyes felt sore and my brain was flickering on and off.

I created an account on the Creepy Pasta Wiki, found the forums, and started a topic.

Flautist I'm looking for information on the labyrinth mythos and stalker men. Anyone have any links?

I hit the enter key and looked at the floor. The off-white tiles looked sort of comfortable.

"He's moving."

"We still have time. Block the gate."

I woke up, cold and stiff. My neck hurt. I saw nothing but white blurs.

The blurs became kitchen appliances. Had they finally rebelled from their human masters? What did they want from me?

Then I remembered I'd fallen asleep on the kitchen tiles.

Then again, that's what the appliances would want me to believe.

I rolled over. My nose left a s.h.i.+ny, oily blot on the tiles.

Afternoon light pierced through the blinds and filled the room. The little clock on the stove read 3:04. I blinked from the light, and tasted stale coffee on my tongue.

But my mind was clearer now. I remembered that the square root of 164 was 14, and that Christopher Marlowe wrote the Tragical Historie of Doctor Faustus around 1592.

I planted both hands on the s.h.i.+ny white tiles and pushed up. My balance was back. I shook my head around a bit. My headache was gone.

Greg's computer sat where I'd left it on the kitchen table. The screen was black, covered with a thin skein of dust. I'd clean it carefully before I put it away; Greg got weird about his computer.

I patted my shoulders and found a hard, painful ball of muscle between my shoulder and neck. I ma.s.saged the knot with my good hand, sat down at the table, and went back online.

The message I'd left in the Creepypasta forum had gotten some comments.

Yorik: Yeah good luck with that Anon101: the labyrinth mythos is closed. it had a little buzz about a year ago but all the links and stories vanished.

Mr. Sparkle: I heard that it was a viral campaign for a website or a shoe or something. most of the posts and stories have been deleted (legal trouble or something). but the original is still lurking around. i copypastad it on my hard disk. i'll pm you.

I checked the Wiki's message system, there was indeed a message from Mr. Sparkle.

There were no greetings, no personal comments, just a wall of text.

I scanned the text. I saw the words "stalker man," I saw "glowing eyes."

This might be it. This might teach me exactly what the f.u.c.k was happening.

So I started at the top, carefully reading every word. But as I read, my chest grew cold. My stomach tightened. My breath ran cold and shallow.

This story was obviously written by a moron.