Previously: “My Prop Halloween Skeleton Keeps Showing Up.”
There’s a highly specific subgenre of creepypasta that I like to call the Surprise Slenderman Story. It’s true that there aren’t an overly large amount of stories occupying this category — but when I find one, it’s always a delight. That was the case with the creepypasta “Good Evening From Your Neighbor,” which, to me, reads like a Surprise Slenderman Story.
What’s a Surprise Slenderman Story? In short, any story that doesn’t expressly say it’s about or features the eponymous creature, but which drops… hints about it — often subtle hints, but hints which suggest fairly clearly that the tall, thin, besuited boogeyman might be at the center of the story all the same.
[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]
What I like about “Good Evening From Your Neighbor,” which was uploaded to the Creepypasta Wiki in 2014 — roughly five years after Slenderman’s 2009 creation — is that it incorporates some of the inconsistencies in the mythos… or, perhaps more accurately, inconsistencies between the mythos. Because there’s more than one, you see; that’s always been the fun of Slenderman: The way that those who created stories around him each put their own unique spins on the creature and his history.
Of course, “Good Evening From Your Neighbor” may also not be a Surprise Slenderman Story at all. That’s another reason I like this variety of tale — you can give it your best guess, but you’ll never really know. And the not-knowing is the fun part, isn’t it?
Find an excerpt below, and read the full story over at the Creepypasta Wiki.
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I love photography.
It presents such excellent opportunities.
Everything considered, it’s rather entertaining. First I had such appreciation for language, if you could call it that at the time. Then came the paintings; rudimentary, yes. But effective nonetheless. And then there was the written word. How long was it that I subsisted on the timelessness of rough scratchings on brittle parchment? Sure, a painting has something of an effect, and little is lost to translation, but even so the effect struck me as so much more distinct, so much more of a beacon. If I was to measure my detection of a viewer from a mile away, then I would be able to detect a reader from a thousand miles away! Now though, I must admit, with this great abundance of technology and innovation, spread to every inch of the globe, the mediums are on a much more balanced footing.
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Follow The Ghost In My Machine on Bluesky @GhostMachine13.bsky.social, Twitter @GhostMachine13, and Facebook @TheGhostInMyMachine. And for more games, don’t forget to check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available now from Chronicle Books!
[Photo via TemperateSage/Pixabay]
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