So we've been traveling together for a few weeks now and everything is going okay. No big incidents. No sightings of Tall, Dark, and Faceless.

Christine and I have actually struck up something of a friendship, once I stopped calling her 'Queequeg.' She rarely smiles, but when she does it's nice.

Tom is still being cryptic as shit, saying that we're going to be "playing our roles as fools," whatever that means.

I'm still worried about John though. Sometimes he stops and just stares at something and I know he's seeing something that isn't there. I'm pretty sure he needs some medication, but he won't tell me what, so the only thing I've been able to get him is aspirin and I don't think that will help.

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.