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Raymond had no idea what “Slender Man” was, which made him feel as old as he did at the OMGs or the LOLs. There were definite advantages to dating a twenty-five-year-old, but there were a few disadvantages, too.

Raymond had not seen this “Slender Man,” which turned out to be a made-up monster from an online story. What Raymond had seen that day, though, was similar. Tall and impossibly thin, with no face. He’d run screaming, and his dad burst from the woods, and when he found out Raymond wasn’t actually hurt, he’d fixed that with a whupping.

Raymond looks at this figure on the road, and it’s forty-five years of nightmares come to life, and then he’s the one administering the beating, a mental one at least, flagellating himself for being so stupid. It’s a tall, thin man, that’s all. It has to be.

“Hello!” Raymond calls again, and curses his voice for wavering. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have a cell phone? There’s been an accident…”

He trails off again as he sees the man’s clothing. Rags, with white skin showing through, shining like bone.

No, that’s his imagination. Or a hallucination. Raymond thought he’d walked away from the accident unscathed, but he must have hit his head.

This is just a tall man in tattered clothing. Anyone who lives out here doesn’t have much money. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be living here, right?

“Hello, I—”

Raymond stops, because now the man is close enough for Raymond to see his face.

And he has no face. Just a smooth expanse of grub-pale skin. Raymond stares, his brain whirring, processing, throwing up explanations. A mask. The darkness. A trick of the moonlight.

But it’s none of that. The man has no face. No features. No hint of features. Just that grayish-white skin. Then his skin ripples, as if maggots squirm under it, and the skin cracks, the whole head opening in a grotesque mouth lined with jagged teeth.

Raymond launches the bike forward and to his relief—his fucking incredible relief—it goes straight and his feet fly onto the pedals, and then he’s churning like he’s a kid again, riding as fast as he can down the road, getting as far as he can from home, his father bellowing behind him.

Only this time, it’s not his father he hears.

There’s a thump, as if the creature fell, maybe tripping over those long legs, and Raymond exhales as he pedals. Then another sound follows. A pounding, like someone running after him, but it sounds wrong. He’s hearing too many feet.

A memory flashes, one of the time he’d whipped around a corner on his bike and a huge mastiff had lunged out from a yard. Raymond hadn’t dared look back, but he’d heard the beast chasing him.

That’s what he’s hearing. Four running legs. He does dare to look back this time—he has to, hoping it’s one of those wild dogs the bartender yammered on about. Just a dog. Nothing scarier than that. But it’s the creature, on all fours, galloping on those long limbs.

Raymond turns back and—

There’s something on the road.

He has a moment of déjà vu, flashing back to driving along and seeing a car stopped in front of him. And it is a car. His car.

His car is up ahead, in the middle of the road.

Obviously it can’t be his car. Someone else stopped, and they’ll see him, and he’ll be safe. Even as the thought flashes, he snarls at himself. He’s a damn grown-up, not a scared kid spotting an adult. But still, it’s a car, which means people and—

And it’s his car. His new Jag. His license plate.

That isn’t possible. He’d been riding in the opposite direction, going straight. But there’s the rear of his car and all the others piled in front of it and then the tree fallen across the road.

He whips past them, not daring to slow and then—

The tree.

He veers at the last second, and the creature grabs Raymond’s pant leg, and he flies over the handlebars and narrowly avoids smashing into the fallen tree.

Raymond scrambles to get up, but the creature’s fangs sink into his calf. He screams and wrenches and kicks, and somehow gets free. The creature’s head swings down, that monstrous mouth heading for his leg again, but Raymond’s kick catches it in the chin and it falls back, and then Raymond is on his feet, staggering, blood pouring down his leg.

He kicks again, harder, making the creature squeal and rear up. Raymond vaults over the tree with the kind of grace he never had even when he was thirty years younger. It’s luck, pure dumb luck. Then he’s on his feet and running, and behind him, the creature yowls as if it can’t figure out how to get around the obstacle.

Soon the dive bar is there. In front of him. Which again makes no logical sense, but he doesn’t care. He flies onto the porch, grabs the door handle and—

It’s locked.