We're staying at a motel now. Two rooms, one for the guys, one for the girls.

I've always disliked motels; they always have an antiseptic smell to them. But I shouldn't complain, really. It's better than sleeping outside. It's a good thing we have enough money for the rooms, although I don't know how long the money will last.

John still looks twitchy and nervous all the time. I've asked if he needs any medication, but he didn't answer me. I think perhaps he does, but doesn't want to take it or doesn't want us to use the money to fill the prescription. It would be a burden, but if he needs it, we should get it for him. We in this together.

Now What?

That was the question I asked Tom. "Now what? Is that everyone?"

He grinned and said, "Just four fools, that's it. And now we go along with our merry plan."

"And what plan would that be?" I asked.

"To fool them all," he said. "To escape the fighting and the fear, to be free and foolish forever."

"To runaway," I said.

"To leave your troubles," he said and started to whistle. I recognized the tune as "Get Happy."

"You do realize that song's about the apocalypse," I said.

He grinned. "Then we better be on our way. It's getting dark."

We piled into John's car. Tom turned on the radio and Judy Garland's rendition of "Get Happy" started playing. I shrugged. Somehow, I wasn't even surprised by the things Tom did anymore.

I had taken up smoking before, when I had stopped running. I thought the Slender Man was going to kill me every single day, so what does it matter if I kill myself a little, right? I had half a pack left in my jacket and I put one in my mouth. John pulled out a lighter and lit it for me.

"So where are we going?" Queequeg asked.

Judy's vocals drifted through the car and I smiled. "It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're on the run from a tentacled abomination."

Queequeg laughed and said, "Hit it."

I stepped on the gas and as the tires squealed, the car sped quietly into the night.

Abraham-men

It's weird. After Arnold disappeared, I didn't feel the need to write anything, to explain what happened at all. But now that I'm back in a group, back doing something other than nothing, I feel this need to write.

Peri tried to tell me this was something called 'the Compulsion,' but I don't know. Maybe it's just human nature -- we seek out others to tell our stories. I thought my story ended with Ahab- sorry, Arnold, but now it's begun again.

So Peri showed me this blog and I immediately asked why it was called "Abraham's Men."

"It's just something Tom called us," Peri said. "I don't know what it means."

"I do," I said. "Back in Tudor England, there were these beggars and vagabonds who pretended be from the Abraham ward of Bethlehem hospital. They did it to gain sympathy, I think. They were called Abraham-men or Abram-men. In fact, there was a character in King Lear who called himself an Abraham-man. Although, really, he went by a different pseudonym, too."

"And what was that?" Peri asked.

"Tom O'Bedlam," I said.

Drinks in the Shade

We meet her in a bar. She was drinking in a darkened corner. Tom pointed her out to me and told me her name -- a weird name -- so I, being the most normal in our group, went over to talk to her.

"Hello," I said. She looked like she was in her early forties, frizzing red hair, a dour expression on her face.

"I'm good," she said. "I don't need anything else."

"Oh, I'm not a waitress," I said. "I'm here to talk to you, Queequeg."

She looked up at me with anger in her eyes. "That's not my name," she said. "Not anymore. I don't know if your some proxy-"

"I'm not," I said. "I'm a runner, like you."

"I'm not a runner," she said. "I was never a runner."

"So what were you?" I asked.

She got quiet then and whispered, "He said we were hunters. He said we were hunting the White Whale."

"Who did?"

"Ahab," she said. "I guess I should call him Arnold now. I thought...I thought it was a delusion, but he showed me it was real. And then he disappeared. He went off to fight some battle and never came back. He's dead and I never said goodbye."

I didn't know what to say, so I walked over to the bar and ordered a round of beer. I placed one beer in front of her and one in front of me. "So what's your real name?" I asked.

"Christine," she said. "You?"

"Peri," I said. "I'm unimaginative. Are you drinking to forget or to remember?"

"What?"

"Well," I said, "usually you drink either to forget about something or to remember something. Forget your worries, remember the good times. Forget the bad, remember the good. So do you want to forget him or remember him?"

"Both," she said. "I don't know. When I was around him, it felt like I was just following him. Like he was larger than life and I was just his shadow."

When she said that, I glanced back at the bar and looked at Tom. I don't know how the fuck he does it, but somehow he does.

"Do you want to be alone?" I asked. "Because we're looking for another member in our little running group and we'd think you'd fit in."

She shrugged. "I've nowhere else to go. I left everything behind to help him and I failed. So I guess I am a runner. I'm just running from my own past."

"We're all running from our past," I said.

Two Down

So we picked up John yesterday. We found him sitting in his car by the side of the road. When Tom went to talk to him, I didn't ask him what he was doing -- it would have been pointless anyway. Tom does what Tom does. Sometimes there are reasons, sometimes there aren't.

But this time, it turned out that John was "our ghost," whatever that meant. To be honest, I was just glad John had a car, because I was tired of walking (you'd think I'd be used to it now, but no). So after Tom somehow persuaded John to join us in this probably fruitless endeavor, we piled into his car and started to drive.

John actually insisted that I drive. I have a driver's license, but haven't driven in a while; John, however, apparently suffers from some bad hallucinations, which is why he was by the side of the road. He said they come and go, but he had a bad one just before we found him.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of John. He's tall and skinny and looks like he needs a sandwich. He also looks super nervous all the time.

Next stop: to pick up "our shadow," or so Tom says. I asked how he knew who they were or where they were, but all he gave me was that fucking enigmatic grin. But what the hell, I've trusted him up until this point, why stop now?

Fun times.

A transient and embarrassed phantom.

hello. i am the ghost of the group, apparently. i asked if this meant that tom was the shadow, but he did not answer, he merely smiled.

i do not know why i am here. i do not even know if i am running from that thing they call the Slender Man, which i call the Geist. i do not know if the times i have seen, i have actually seen it, or seen merely delusions conjured by my unbalanced mind.

you see, while tom pretends at madness, i fear i am truly mad. for i see the Geist everywhere. around every corner, in every man's face. i shake away my sight and it goes away, but it always comes back.

i have told tom this, but still he insisted that i come with him. i do not know why. he called me "the ghost," which i found strange. i have often imagined that i was just a ghost of a man, but it didn't not sound like he meant that.

i wasn't doing well on my own anyway, so i decided to go with tom and peri.

One Knight

I was sitting in my small apartment. I was waiting in the dark for Him. I knew He was waiting outside; He was always waiting for me. Ever since I stopped running, He was waiting for me. His thin arms, His blank face. I held the gun in my hand and I waited for Him.

And then there was a knock on the door.

Whatever the Slender Man is, He does not knock, I know that. So I got up and checked the peephole. Then I set the gun down and opened the door and let Tom inside.

I've known Tom for a while, I guess. I met him when I first started running. He was just as mad then, but somehow he was always able to figure out the best places to stay to avoid the Slender Man. We drifted apart, but then met again when the Skeptic recruited us for a war. That didn't last long and the last time I saw him was almost a year ago.

He smiled at me and said, "Hello, Peri, my little sun dog. We must go, we must rush towards a meeting, a collision. We must meet the meat."

"What are you talking about, Tom?" I asked. "Why are you even here?"

"We must tilt at windmills, Peri," Tom said. "We must meet our ghosts and shadows. We must run together."

"I've given up on running, Tom," I said. "I'm just going to stay here, in one place, until He decides to kill me."

"You are a knight," he said. "A knight of the running table. A night knight. We will pick up ghosts and shadows along the way. Come with me, Peri. We will be Abraham's Men. We'll pretend to be mad and trick them all!"

"I'm not joining a runner's group," I said.

"You're our knight, Peri," Tom said. "Our knight of ghosts and shadows. Come with me, Peri."

He wasn't going to leave me alone. I looked at him and saw someone who wasn't insane; no, he merely pretended to be mad in order to throw everyone off. That's how he survived. And how he was offering me another chance at survival.

I took a look at my dark apartment and decided I no longer wanted to stay there. It never felt like home.

So here I am. On the run again. Ready to meet up with ghosts and shadows.

Here we go.

The Moon's My Constant Mistress

With an host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney,
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end –
Methinks it is no journey.

Good evening, gentle-persons. I am Tom O'Bedlam, Mad Tom, the Ticking Clock, the Twisting Spire, He of the Dis-tempered Brain. I am here to welcome to something new. We are beggars, we are thieves, we are wanderers and vagabonds and wayward travelers. We are runners and we run from that which everyone is running from: the terror of the unknown.

We are mad, all of us. But we can reach out to each other. We can go mad together. We can run forever without end and become like the stars, burning in the sky.

We are knights, ghosts, and shadows. We are rich men, poor men, beggar men, and thieves. We are the madness of crowds.

Welcome.