A rapid-fire series of ultra-serious vignette shots play across your screen featuring Montague Cervantes in various states of investigation. Pouring over dusty tomes in a library. Scrolling through grainy microfiche featuring indecipherable photos. Peering curiously through an ancient copse of trees on a green slope with the occasional rocky outcropping. Examining a wood or stone carving of some misshapen beast in a side-of-the-road curio shop.
The familiar scenes from the maligned pilot episode are cut up and interspersed with new clips; Jordana Andrews as Asuka from Evangelion getting interrupted helping Montague research so some fans can beg for a picture with her; Jordana nearly stumbling in her Fran the Viera heels and getting her ears caught in a branch as she struggles to keep up with Montague on a hike through a forest; Jordana as Merida, adjusting her voluminous red curls in a mirror affixed to the wall of a classroom in an abandoned schoolhouse and touching two fingers to her cheek while winking as if she’s taking a selfie while Montague desperately tries to draw her attention to a symbol drawn on the chalkboard.
Finally, a graphic plays over a stylized, slow motion gif of Monty with a half-unbuttoned brown shirt pushing aside some foliage. It reads:
Astro-Cryptids
With Montague Cervantes and Jordana Andrews
The view changes to a slow, aerial pan of some midwestern plains interrupted here and there by copses of trees and the abandoned ruins of grain silos, horse barns, and twisted, barbed-wire fences barely held up by rotting, leaning posts.
A namecard appears: “Voice of Doctor-Professor Montague Cervantes; Cryptozoologist and Folklore Expert”
Montague: The Operator. The Ender. The Big Man. Something Awful. Suicide Spirit. The Insidious Beast. Der Großman.
For the last thirteen years, an eldritch evil has slowly been leaking into our world. It is a being of influence, working through unintentional journalists and documentarians who are compelled to search out its presence and nature. It began by inspiring photo evidence of itself to be created on internet forums to herald its arrival, and has since gained reach through the imaginings and nightmares of those it draws in. Those who become fascinated by his mystique are either lost while following the labyrinth of their deepening psychosis into the wilds, or persuaded to perform unspeakable acts of violence on friends and family.
As time has gone on, the force has managed to influence the youth of our country to manifest him in locations such as Stirling City, Clear Lakes, Waukesha, Cincinnati, Port Richey, Pine Ridge Reservation.
And here. The Shawnee National Forest.
Montague and Jordana peer up at the massive wooden tower in the center of the clearing. Determination is plastered on Monty’s face, even as doubt pulls Jordana’s into a frown. He’s wearing his hiking gear, but she’s dressed as a Silent Hill nurse.
At some point in the past, this tower was erected by some forest ranger, a way to monitor and maintain the preserve that surrounds them. A switchback style staircase leads from the ground to stacked landings that climb higher and higher until reaching a platform raised far enough over the treeline to observe for miles around. Telltale smoke, unexpected aviary behavior, even out of place sounds carried on the wind might be clues that something is amiss and needs investigation.
Jordana: When was the last time this thing was used? Or repaired?
Montague: The ranger said it was torn down before he started working here ten years ago; he didn’t even know it was still standing.
Jordana: That does not make me more confident. You’re not going up there are you?
She turns to see him grinning with anticipation as his neck continues to incline upward.
Jordana: Of course you are. Look, Monty, how do you know it’s even worth risking your neck to go up there?
Without returning her gaze, and without looking toward where he’s suddenly pointing, Montague simply raises his left arm and extends his forefinger. She squints and leans closer until she can see the symbol carved there.
⛒
She realizes that she’s not going to be able to talk him out of it now.
Montague: Are you coming up with me?
Jordana fixes him with a look of such incredulity that he might have suggested that she fly to the top of the tower. He shrugs and takes a step toward the stairs.
Montague: Suit yourself.
With that, he marches forward and begins to ascend. Jordana holds her breath as each step he takes causes the tower to rock. She feels her pulse quickening as he rounds the first landing and begins climbing the second set of steps.
Jordana: Montague, this thing isn’t going to hold you. Can’t we just go pick up a drone and fly it up there to get some footage?
Montague: Too late now.
He pauses on the second landing to smile down at her before attacking the third set of stairs. Jordana sighs angrily at his insistence to continue, but suddenly sucks her breath in when a shrill creak resonates from the structure. The high-pitched whine is cut short by a whipcrack, and the entire tower pitches away from her for a heartstopping second.
Above, Montague has shot his arms out to either side to steady himself, gripping timbers for dear life as the framework tries to decide if it’s going to let go. He crouches, waiting as it finally settles back into place.
Montague lets out a shaky chuckle, but pushes himself back to his feet and continues upward.
Jordana: Are you kidding me?!
Montague: I need something on this one, and so far I’ve got nothing!
Jordana: Did you google him?
Montague: Of course! It’s just other people talking about him, there’s no evidence of what he’s actually done!
Jordana shakes her head. Last week he was upset because the Abominable Snowman didn’t live up to the hype, and now he’s hunting a cryptid that seems to have been made up just within the last decade. How is he picking the most underwhelming targets to go after?
She watches him climbing the fourth set of risers, a bit more carefully this time. Looking ahead at how many steps will take him to the fourth landing, she misses him stepping through the plank halfway up.
With a yelp, Monty plummets through the weakened step, only catching the one above it with his hands seconds before it, too, gives way. He drops like a sack of potatoes onto the third platform, but manages to hit a three-point-landing. Unfortunately, the impact causes the vertical timbers on that side of the set up to buckle.
Once again, the entire edifice tilts, only much farther this time. There’s a moment when it hangs there, leaning impossibly over the brink, and then it begins to fall. Jordana lets out a scream and backpedals, only to land on her bare ass on the clearing floor.
The tower explodes into kindling as it crashes noisily to the ground. A cloud of dust mushrooms up around it, and a flock of birds panics and takes wing nearby, complaining as they escape.
Recovering herself, Jordana quickly forces herself to her feet and hurries over to the wreckage. In the center of the ruined pile of lumber, the Showman suddenly sits up, a goofy but unhurt grin on his face.
Montague: Well… that was an adventure.
Furious, Jordana just stares as he begins to dust himself off and pick over the remains of the tower, still intent on looking for something he can learn about this week’s target.
Jordana: How can you be happy about this? There’s no way you’re going to find anything in this mess. You risked your ass for nothing!
Montague sighs, kicking a rotted board out of the way as he gives up the search and steps out of the pile.
Montague: This is the most exciting thing that’s happened since I started this venture.
Jordana: You could have been killed chasing down evidence that you don’t even know for sure was there, and now we're walking away with nothing but a stroke of luck that didn’t break your back when you landed.
He walks over and tentatively puts an arm around her shoulders.
Montague: We have the experience, Jordana. How exciting was it to watch that behemoth of a tower come crashing down?
Jordana shoves his arm off and walks ahead of him a few paces, indicating that it’s time to go.
Jordana: All I got was half a dozen years off the end of my ticker.
She continues to head out of the clearing, but Montague hesitates, turning to look at the tumble of dark wood lying behind them.
Montague: But… you got to watch something be destroyed. What could be better?
She finally pauses, turning with a scowl.
Jordana: Watching it with you safe on the ground next to me, for starters. And maybe for there to have been something to gain from it. This is just mayhem for the sake of mayhem. You wanted us to come out here for a reason, and you’re not closer to learning anything about him.
Montague: But I learned something about myself. I can survive a four story building collapsing on me.
He shrugs.
Montague: So not a complete loss, right?
Rolling her eyes, Jordana turns in a huff and stomps toward the treeline again.
Jordana: I thought you wanted my help to take these creatures on, not just to have someone on hand to watch you kill yourself.
Realizing that she’s finished here, Montague hurries to catch up to Jordana.
Montague: I wanted someone on board to share the experience, whatever it might be. Take on the creatures, put on a fun show if we can’t find them, pull off something exciting and amusing either way. Most of my opponents are going to be bunk, if we’re being honest, and we need that edge to make this entertaining.
Jordana shakes her head as they pass between the first two trees into the thick of the forest.
Jordana: Then you need Jacky. That sort of havoc isn’t my thing.
Monty smirks at her indulgently.
Montague: How am I supposed to bring Jacky? She’s under house arrest.
Jordana shrugs her left shoulder.
Jordana: She’s not in a cell.
Montague: Week two of this undertaking, and I’m still coming up short on finding a worthy foe. It turns out that the Slenderman is little more than internet hype. He was conceived by someone for a colloquium contest, gained some instant popularity, and spread rapidly from one forum to another for a short time before ultimately fizzling out.
He’s a meme. A hot topic. A fad that everyone’s going to jump on for a while because it’s trendy and new. I expect we’ll see the majority of his substance on Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram, and not much to go on outside of that area of influence.
Sure, Slendy has a classic look. Smart suit, pale features, tall and narrow with gangly appendages. He’s like a poor man’s Sebastian Everett-Bryce. But there’s nothing intimidating about him outside of the engineered glamor assigned to him by Gen Z edgelords.
It can’t last. What seems novel and fresh in the moment will, in retrospect, seem disappointingly familiar and depressingly derivative. Ultimately, it’s a template designed by its very nature to conform to whatever form is best suited to appeal in the current climate. When the winds change, it will prove to be insubstantial and unable to stand under the weight of the legend it created for itself.
Don’t trouble yourself with learning the detailed and carefully constructed mythos surrounding this one. In the long term, it’s not going to matter at all.
