-August- Back Home

Well, that took considerably longer than I thought it would.

Almost a week longer than I thought it would, actually. All thanks to a note taped to the sender's door when I arrived on Wednesday night.

"To the courier -

Took the package myself. Hope the money will cover the gas cost.

God bless,

Stephanie"

I could already see this was going to be a nightmare, because of course I'm not allowed to just say 'oh, well, it's been taken care of' and take them money and run because of course it's never that easy, because there's no such thing as a normal delivery, especially if you're doing it by yourself and especially if you called us to do the delivery in the first place.

Oh, and the small stack of bills she left didn't even begin to cover the costs of travelling from the house to NYC. So there's always that.

... So I was going to hunt her down, then. A near impossible task considering the size of the big apple and the fact that Runners are usually really, really hard to find considering they're people who manage to stay mostly out of reach of Slim N' Trim himself.

Not exactly the easiest of tasks.

But as luck would have it, what do I hear over the radio as I start up the FREE CANDY van?

"... no evidence found. One child reported a man in a suit near the scene of the crime. Police are investigating."

After twenty minutes of staring hopefully at the radio, the story wasn't mentioned again. I didn't catch the location, but if the fact that this was a little too coincidental was anything to go by, I figured I could take a guess as to where the body had been found, and who the body belonged to.

I got to Central Park a bit before midnight, (Jesus Rollerblading Christ this is such a big city.) meaning most reasonable people had left and most of the police force had been sent out. I'll save you the details and tell you that the Central Park Police really know what they're doing.

Looks like I'd get lucky twice today, because the package was on the girl (or what was left of her) and I managed to get out without being caught.

I don't know how, either.

The drop-off was some little village called Mystic in Connecticut. (You may proceed to chuckle at the coincidence; I certainly did.) A five hour drive to avoid the mind-numbingly boring I-95.

But hey, despite having a case of wicked nausea that kept me pulled over every hour or so, (still haven't gotten all the Slendergunk out of me) I had Queen to keep me company.

She's a killer queen

Gunpowder, Gelatine

Dynamite with a laser beam

Let me tell you a few things about the village of Mystic.

The village of Mystic is not a recognized municipality.

The village of Mystic has a population of 4001 people.

The village of Mystic has a total area of 3.8 square miles.

About ten percent of that is water.

The village of Mystic is located within another city by the name of Groton.

And on top of this, there's also the village of Old Mystic, which is about two miles bigger and actually marked on a map.

Needless to say, it was really, really easy to miss.

And guess which one I wasted a whole day in, before driving back out to the larger town of Groton to ask somebody who might actually know what they're doing.

Well, I found it.

It was Sunday by then. I had split the driving up into two days (I think I would die driving for five straight hours. Three hours on and off when I go on delivery with someone else is torture) and wasted Saturday in Old Mystic, growing increasingly frustrated and loathsome of the tiny cardboard box in the passenger's seat. I had decided sometime around Friday evening that there would be nothing short of heaven on earth that would make this delivery worth it. Hunting down a victim, stealing evidence, hundreds of dollars in gas money and fast food.

There's a reason I learned how to cook, you know.

Maybe one day I'll tell you.

Ha.

But back to the delivery.

On the box was an address somewhere in the middle of the suburbs, (And by suburbs, I mean about fifty town houses clustered together with a park somewhere in the middle.) and guess who was waiting for me when I arrived?

Nobody. I was about ready to break into the house, steal whatever was of value, drop the box and get home when their neighbor, regarding the package in my hand, approached me.

"Excuse me, little miss, can I help you?"

He was in his late 40s; salt-and-pepper hair and crow's feet clinging to his eyes. A slight grin was playing on his face, brown eyes looking me up and down.

Creep.

"Delivery for mister... Church?" I ignored the middle bit of that statement. You're here to do a delivery, not to make enemies. Calm, calm...

His brow raised slightly. "Ian's not around, girly. If you step inside I'd be happy to sign for-"

"If you could just give me the spare key I can leave it inside."

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Nothing in that man's eyes was to be trusted. I took a step back and cut him off, trying very, very hard to hide the obvious irritation in my tone.

Needless to say, I failed.

He didn't like this one bit.

"Now listen here, you gotta be a little more respectful than-"

"We have explicit instructions from both Ian and the sender to leave it inside. It's very valuable. Something about a deceased relative? Anyways, he wants it inside and told me one of the neighbors would have the key."

Blatant lies.

Spencer had taught me well.

(And the nausea's acting up again. Jesus Rollerblading Christ. I need to get into a bathroom. Quickly.)

He didn't argue much after that, retreating back into the house and returning shortly with a key. Grumbling and some less-than-savory language may have been involved in the process, but I was beyond caring. The end was finally in sight.

There was no note because no doubt Mr. Church had expected this package days ago. He was probably on his way to New York to see the sender and... well, he wouldn't like what he found.

I entered the kitchen and left the cardboard box on the counter, glad to finally have that thing off my hands.

And then I realized.

I didn't specify payment.

And how did I know this?

By the stack of bills sitting in a clip on the counter, marked 'FOR THE DELIVERY.'

Notes on the fridge, on the table, in frames on the walls and written on the floor told me this guy had horrible memory issues. Induced by Slim N' Trim? Maybe. But I really didn't care. Something told me this guy would need the money for himself, if only to buy more stickies to write down his name, his home address, and why he's living alone and what was in the package.

A wedding band.

...

Suddenly, this hell became completely worth it.

I didn't take the cash, but there were some fantastic Italian cookbooks in the drawers next to the kitchen. I grabbed a couple (and one East Indian, mmmmmm~) and left my own note.

The drive home would take me another nine hours. Again, I split it into two days.

So now it's Wednesday at 5 AM and I come home, and of course the house is still a mess because I can't expect them to clean, but somebody did the dishes and the kitchen has been scrubbed down, though the smell of vomit and Slendergunk still clings to the air.

I'm dead tired and collapse onto the kitchen table, realizing how comfortable the chair is and what a great pillow this table makes.

I realize the others will be up in an hour or so.

I realize somebody needs to cook them breakfast.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

I drag my legs up from under the chair and practically crawl towards the fridge, stubbing my toe in the dark (because by now I'm used to the headlights of the van) on the counter and yelping like a puppy who's taken his first fall down a flight of stairs.

The light from the inside of the fridge burns my eyes, and I'm looking through two hazy slits.

What's sitting on the top shelf?

A piece of cake, covered in plastic wrap, garnished with a piece of paper.

"Happy birthday, August!

♥"

Awwwwww.

It's got strawberry frosting jesus rollerblading christ strawberry frosting is my favorite and it could be made of sand and garnished with dandelion heads and it would still taste like sweet, sweet, strawberry-frosted heaven.

Breakfast would have to wait a few minutes, and the slight sugar high made pancakes much, much easier. I also only ended up cooking for five of us seeing as Steele and Todd have flown the coup, (at least for now) which is good because I only made half the recipe.

Anyways, Spencer says we're invited to a wedding tomorrow? I guess I'll have to catch up on blogs some other time. I've got a week's worth of sleep to catch up on and an outfit to plan out.

...

Wait.

Spencer, I'm wearing a what?!

-August- Everything We Know About The Boss

Evidently, not a whole lot.

The boss is but one of many, many things in this house that seem to be shrouded in more mystery than the beef in Taco Bell's Spicy Gordita Crunch. Where does he get all his money? Where did this house come from, and how did Spence come to own it? What's with the east wing, and why does he willingly live in there? Why all the alcohol? And on the topic of all the bourbon, how is he not dead yet?

And what was that post yesterday about?

Well, I have a few ideas, all of which seem to tie back to the above post.

But let's get through what we know first.

Spencer has access to large amounts of cash.

The boss has outright stated that he has a ridiculous amount of money. This is the man who hands out $50 000 bonuses like they're pieces of candy, and you'd be shocked at the number of zeroes at the end of our paychecks.

Does he have it legally? I don't know. Do I care? Not really.

Spencer has been Slenderstalked for a long, long time.

This comes from the fact that it's fairly obvious to anyone that Spence knows much, much, much more about Mr. Slim n' Trim (and running from him, while we're at it) than he should.

Spencer is, on the surface, much saner than most of the Slenderstalked.

If the events of the 8th show us anything, it's that while a majority of the team was busy freaking out or being possessed, Spencer played Big Damn Hero and basically saved all of us. He's boss for a reason, I guess, but I would think that being stalked for a while longer than us would make his symptoms when everybody got Loopy worse. Then again, maybe it just ties into the fact that...

Spencer consumes enough alcohol to kill every liver north of the equator.

And somehow, he's still alive. Another thing to note is that Spencer is always cold; his skin is freezing to the touch and he's so pale his skin almost looks gray, and is completely translucent.

I read through Doc's report of the injuries following the 7th, and I realized that something didn't seem quite right.

"Boss - pulse 78, 98.6°F. Sustained minor injuries in the struggles last night, needed stitches, nothing else to report."

Nobody saw Spencer get injured.

Amanda's post didn't mention anything about the boss getting hurt. Doc didn't see him become injured, either. Todd doesn't remember anything but has intuition enough to put every woman on earth to shame, so I'm just going to take his word on that.

And I know what you're thinking: he probably just had an older injury that got re-opened.

That's exactly my point.

Why lie about it? Were Amanda and Doc covering for him, or did Spence tell them that as well? Wouldn't Doc notice if the injury had been re-opened, and wasn't fresh? Was she too drugged up and Loopy to care?

Does it matter?

Anyways. Onto our next point...

Even if he isn't insane, he's at the very least bipolar and disturbed.

The fact that he's disturbed isn't a surprise. Anybody stalked by an eldritch abomination isn't going to come out of it all sunshine and rainbows. But the fact that he takes it in stride is more than a lot of us can attest to.

It's also pretty obvious Spencer is bipolar. It's obvious in the very first post of this blog, when he shifts tones so quickly readers should end up with proverbial whiplash. There's no place where it's showcased better than in the post that is the subject of today's... analysis? I guess?

Or maybe it's not. After all...

Spencer is a lying, cheating, dirty-fighting bastard.

Heh. This is something that really has to be seen, seeing as how new this blog is. The boss is apt at fighting. Frighteningly so. He's cold and ruthless when in battle and seems to have every move calculated. He's proficient in almost every weapon I've seen him fight with, (and probably more that I haven't seen) and while he prefers his shovel, he has no qualms with using other weapons if need be.

He also lies like a rug.

Of course, I have no evidence for this so far. The only real proof I have is the fact that his possible bipolarism leads to some very interesting comments from him, all of which seem like Spence showcasing his less-than-excellent acting. He's dipped into dark stuff before and will again, and the bright and cheery optimism seems glued on.

Of course, that's what we know.

But let's move onto today's topic.

Spencer's last post.

Given his cryptic nature, I'm very suspicious when I'm presented with anything that may or may not clear the fog surrounding the boss' past. This isn't the first story he's told us and it certainly won't be the last, and all Joker parallels aside I'm convinced he's not a serial murderer, regardless of how many Proxies we've had to cut through to get the job done.

(They are people, you know; with lives and families and pets and hopes and dreams. We're not allowed to forget that. I'm not allowed to forget that there's the blood of 13 people with jobs and ambitions on my hands alone. The moment we lose our morality and start seeing them as bags of flesh is the moment we're no better than the faceless bastard we're trying to avoid.)

So, does this post explain...

Why Spence has a lot of money?

Yes. Cults the size of towns tend to amass reasonable fortunes.

Does it make sense that Spence would 'robbed the cult who had deceived him blind'?

Yes. This is the man who has stolen Doc's favorite knife right under her nose, and kept it away until she posted. See 'Spencer is a lying, cheating, dirty-fighting bastard' for additional reasoning. (Though not much.)

Does this support the theory that Spencer had been Slenderstalked for a long time?

The implication of the story is that he was born into one of those cults in Indiana. So yes. He'd have been stalked for his entire life, but it wouldn't have gotten worse until he decided to run. Since he was fifteen, by the looks at it. Assuming the service has been running for three years (I've heard him mention it on and off. Sometimes it's seven. Sometimes it's five. Sometimes it's three, sometimes even one. Three is the most common; three is what I'm sticking with. But it can't be one, because Doc says she's been around for two and a half years. I've been here for a little over nine months.) it means Spence has been on the run for at least ten years.

(Then again, nobody knows his true age. We just go by appearance.)

That just seems too far-fetched, even for Spencer. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that the boss ran for a long time, but eight years of having no place to call your own and constant paranoia is enough to drive anybody absolutely insane, and Spence just isn't that crazy/stupid.

For all his alcohol-induced bipolarism (or maybe the alcohol tones it down? I haven't seen him sober for long enough to tell.) Spencer is far from stupid. Let's just say if there's a scale of genre savviness the boss is somewhere between the one holding the strings and the villain who decides to shoot the hero (twice for good luck) once he's got them in his grasp.

I should also mention one line in particular that stands out in the post.

"Focus, Spencer, focus. Maybe tell a story? God knows you probably won't post this anyway, but you've got to let your mind wander to navigate this, come on, stop thinking...."

Spence, do you know this post is up?

You have to. You commented on it. Allow me to rephrase:

Do you realize what you wrote in this post?

Something tells me that if you'd be sober enough to actually look through the blog you'd realize what you posted, because it's evident you weren't very sober when posting that.

Final question, half out of finally being out of points, and half out of Jesus Rollerblading Christ this post is massive.

Does this story provide a likely history for Spencer?

Yes.

Does this mean that this is likely what happened?

No.

But it's the closest we've got.