BONUS STORY #2

[malachiical]

BONUS STORY – ARTS AND CRAFTS WITH THE DANCERS

The fomorian's death had brought a welcome respite to the campground. There was still the gnawing ache of the old year, of course. Like an old scar that never ceases itching. It could be ignored, if one had the awareness and control to do so. Not every creature on the campground could. Some chose not to. But with the fomorian gone, they were no longer compelled to lie low, struggling against their base instincts out of fear of attracting the tyrant's baleful gaze.

Spring was coming to the campground and the inhuman creatures were stirring along with the seeds.

Not all creatures were content to heed the pull of the old year, however. It was a sharp longing, like hunger or thirst or not remembering if you turned the stove off before you left. It could be ignored, however, by those with the awareness to choose. For them, the fomorian's death was one less weight to carry. The tyrant's presence was like a thick fog over the campground, choking their every breath, and the relief of it being gone almost made them forget the lure of the old year and the demands it made of them.

Almost.

So while the humans mourned their losses, the inhabitants of the campground rejoiced. The dancers in particular were exuberant in their celebrations. They welcomed any excuse, but this one was especially appropriate. The creature that had murdered one of their musicians was gone. They were free from its baleful power. Their party lasted for days, rotating from clearing to clearing with each sunset. As such, it was only a matter of time before they encountered another campground inhabitant.

Beau paused at the entrance of the clearing. It was one of the smaller ones in a low part of the forest that was prone to flooding. The ground was covered in grass and moss and the fire was situated in an old fire ring surrounded by half-heartedly scraped bare earth. The trees pressed in on all edges, packing the dancers in close. This didn't seem to be a deterrent. They linked arms and spilled drinks on each other.

There were two people conspicuously not participating in the revelry. One was the former sheriff. This was not unusual. Beau spared him a terse nod which was returned in kind. They understood each other. One, not quite human and not quite inhuman. The other, fully inhuman but also bound to someone fully human. They hung balanced between two worlds.

Beau and the former sheriff hadn't actually talked to each other. There was merely an understanding between the two. Nothing else was needed.

The other person sitting outside the ring of firelight was the lead dancer. Now this was unusual. The lead dancer didn't look up at him. She stood there leaning against a tree, dressed rather plainly in jeans and a halter top. Her arms were crossed and her expression was uncharacteristically grim. For a moment, Beau considered walking on by. Before the fomorian, he would have.

"Care to join me on a walk?" he asked.

If the lead dancer was startled by the invitation, it didn't show. She shoved away from the tree trunk and neatly fell in beside him. Like she'd just been looking for an excuse to leave the party behind.

"Keep an eye on them!" she called back to the former sheriff. He acknowledged her request with a wave of his hand.

They walked in silence until the glow of the clearing faded away. The forest at night was quiet. There wasn't even the rustling of the underbrush as a startled night animal fled from their approach. These particular inhuman things fed on humans and were as harmless as the wind or the rain. Soon the campground would be filled with people instead and the silence would be broken by the laughter and talk of the people drinking late into the night. It all blurred together. The only thing to mark this year from all the others was that pull. The stirring of the campground, demanding that they become more than they were.

Finally, the lead dancer spoke.

"I feel like I'm changing." She frowned. "I've always spoken for the group, but that was because it was easier to have a single spokesperson when dealing with humans. But now... I feel like I'm becoming their leader."

"Is this not what you want?"

"I don't know. Did it bother you when your form solidified?"

He answered without taking time to consider the question. It wasn't anything he hadn't already thought about.

"No. It was different, but that was all."

"Yes. It's different."

They walked along for a bit longer. The lead dancer steered them up out of the deep woods, toward the field. Soon enough they found themselves standing at the edge of the forest where the petrified body of the fomorian hunkered. Its head was thrown back, its remaining eye wide, mouth ajar as if with surprise. One of its arms was missing along with chunks hewn roughly from its back. Dust lay settled about its base in a thick blanket. The demolition of the statue had begun. The workers Kate hired had shown up late the prior day, apparently underestimating how big of a "statue" it really was.

"Did you know that the old sheriff bought the land the old church is on?" Beau asked. "His wife asked if he would."

"And how did you find out?"

The lead dancer was offended. Beau didn't like anyone so how was he getting the interesting gossip before her?

"Kate. She told me a few days ago."

"And you're only just now telling me? I demand that you share the best news with me first. That's how it's supposed to be."

"It is?"

"Aren't we friends now?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. He ignored her ire, instead studying the damage done to the fomorian statue. He didn't disagree with Kate's choice to remove it. Best to erase all memory of it. A would-be tyrant had no place here, not even as a memorial to its defeat.

"A human term," he replied disdainfully.

"Is it exclusive to humans, though? What are friends but two entities who can tolerate each other enough to not kill each other for a little while?"

"I think there's more to it than that. Besides, plenty of human friends kill each other."

"I'm no expert, but I think the friendship ends when the murdering starts."

A moment of silence between the two. Perhaps more than a moment. Time was perceived differently by these inhuman things that were not bound by the clock and had no obligations, other than what their whims demanded.

"Do you," the lead dancer asked, turning to look at Beau and raising her eyebrows high, "want to commit crimes?"

Beau's only response was a thin smile, but that was enough.

* * *
That morning, when Kate let the workers in through the front gate, there were two pairs of eyes watching from the woods. The lead dancer hunkered low to the ground. She wore camo spandex running pants and a camo t-shirt. Bits of branches and leaves were stuck all through her hair. Beau, on the other hand, merely stood there with no attempt to conceal his presence.

"There," she hissed, pointing. "Do you see him?"

Beau squinted. There were three workers in the pickup truck making its way toward the fomorian statue. None of them looked particularly interesting. He absently rotated the skull in his hands, swirling the liquid inside. Not even interesting enough to share his drink with.

"That one," the dancer continued. "He just got out."

"I suppose. What's special about him?"

"Nothing. I just don't like his face."

Beau frowned.

"It's... a face."

"Okay, fine, I picked him at random," she admitted.

"Then he hasn't given offense?"

"And he's not going to," she hissed. "He's avoiding the woods. He's either canny... or boring."

"What you propose... it feels unnatural."

While inhuman things did not operate by human standards of morality, they had their own codes. Their own internal rules, their own reasoning for who was their preferred prey. It was not binding – they could do as they willed – but it was like wearing a familiar jacket. Anything else felt like it didn't fit right. Beau shifted uneasily, putting his weight on his other foot. It wasn't that he was adverse to what the dancer was proposing. He'd certainly indulged his own whims on occasion. It was just... it was the dancer proposing it. They weren't like each other.

"That's what makes it a crime," she said.

"How do you know so much about committing crimes?"

"It's something the campers say. I'm hearing it more than I used to. We get them quite drunk, you know, when they join our party. We hear all sorts of things. And that's what they call this now. When you do something you know will cause trouble for everyone else, but you want to do it and it's going to be fun – it's a crime."

"Are you talking about... shenanigans?"

"Pffft. They don't use that anymore. You sound like you're old."

"I wish I were old," Beau muttered under his breath.

Beau continued to watch the man, his expression flat, his eyes bright as they barely turned, watching the patterns as they shifted and shone with every movement the man made. Like watching the northern lights. A shimmering veil draped in the air around him, subtle patterns that hinted at all the connections between him and the world. Many of them were tattered, like moss growing on a forgotten power line. His life was in upheaval. He was breaking more threads than he was making.

Beau had sometimes wondered what would happen if all the threads connecting a person to the world were broken. They didn't die. Even in death a person's place in the world remained. Would someone cease to exist? Could such a thing even be done?

There was nothing remarkable about him. His problems were his own and nothing that mattered to Beau. Nor was there anything that would give reason for the dancers to care whether he lived or died.

"I'll handle getting him into the deep woods," the dancer said. "But I need your help for what's next. I need you to borrow something from Kate."

* * *
Kate was always initially wary when he visited her. He supposed that was only appropriate. He was an inhuman thing, after all, and she was technically his rightful prey. The only reason he hadn't acted on his claim was because she could get him something... something he couldn't get on his own.

It turned out that there was more she could get for him than a name.

"I need a sewing kit."

Kate stared blankly at him a moment, sluggishly processing what she'd heard. She was like this whenever he said something that didn't match her expectations of how he should behave. Like she'd planned out every conversation in advance and if it deviated too far from this outline, she had to redo it. She couldn't help it, he supposed. Humans were always planning. Their meals, their jobs, and even their deaths. As if anything were certain.

It still annoyed him, though.

"For... what?" she finally asked.

"The dancers."

Again, that pause. Her brow creased in consternation and she tried to speak a few times and finally gave up the attempt. They were sitting in the living room with two steaming mugs of tea sitting before them. It amused him how much effort she put into finding drinks that might please him. It was the correct thing to do, of course, as his host. But she clearly didn't realize that anything made by human hands had that same flat, bland taste to him. Even the whiskey that she was so proud of held no particular flavor.

He had quite the collection of liquor because of Kate. Perhaps he should start sharing with the dancers. They, at least, had an appreciation for alcohol.

"I-I guess I can get you a sewing kit," Kate finally said. "Wait here."

She sighed and stood, walking out of the living room. After a few minutes she returned with a plastic caddy full of thread, needles, and other sewing notions.

"Can you tell me what they're going to use it for?" Kate asked as she set it down on the table.

"She said something about making a costume."

"Well that seems nice and harmless."

Beau carefully took a sip of his tea.

"Sure," he said. "Harmless."

He had to admit that committing crimes was rather entertaining.

* * *
The dancer was overjoyed when Beau returned with the sewing kit. She quickly handed it off to one of the other dancers and then rubbed her hands together in glee. It was time to get to the exciting part – kidnapping their victim. Beau wasn't entirely certain what she intended to do with him, but he was quite happy to go along with the plan in order to find out.

"I must get the other materials we need," she said, "so you'll be responsible for bringing him to our favorite clearing."

"Why can't you have the rest of the dancers get them for you?"

"Because they'll be distracting Kate," she said primly. "Did you know that Kate is incredibly paranoid about a forest fire breaking out?"

That made sense, Beau supposed. He couldn't imagine it was a viable threat though. There were plenty of inhabitants here that would be alarmed at the thought of their home burning down around them. While he wasn't entirely sure what all the creature Kate called 'the thing in the dark' could do, he was pretty certain it wouldn't allow the forest to burn. At the first sign of an uncontrolled fire, it'd probably rise from its lair and that'd be that.

Actually, now that he was thinking about it, that would be an interesting thing to see, should any camper disregard Kate's rules about firepits. Would the thing in the dark consume the resulting fire – and the ones that started it?

"Now, we are absolutely going to kill this guy," the lead dancer said, interrupting Beau's thoughts. "Are you okay bringing him to the clearing knowing that?"

"I need him to give offense first," Beau said firmly. "I have my limits to how far I'll break the rules."

"No, that's fair, I expected as much. Just offer him a drink."

"And if he accepts?"

"He won't."

Beau raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Kate was much better about going over the rules with any outside contractors that she brought into the campsite. She didn't just give them the pamphlet to read now. There was an orientation and everything. Of course, the orientation only lasted like ten minutes, but ten minutes of Kate lecturing someone was probably more than enough to ensure they did what they were supposed to.

The dancer was unperturbed by Beau's skepticism. She crouched and scooped up a handful of dirt. Then she gracefully stood and upended her hand over the skull cup.

"Did you just... dump dirt into my drink?"

Unbelievable. He stared in dismay as the crimson liquid, amber when the sunlight hit it, quickly darkened to a brackish sludge. Tentatively, he took a sip.

"Texture is all wrong now," he complained.

"The humans won't notice. They think it tastes gross," the dancer replied. "The important thing is that it now looks like something that came out of the septic tank instead of a questionable fruit punch. Anyway, I'm off. Good luck!"

She patted him on the back and skipped away, humming merrily. Beau stood there for a moment more, staring dourly into his cup. Some of the sediment shifted and released an air bubble. It reminded him of a frog, of its motley skin and the bubble shining as one giant eyeball. Perhaps being the lead dancer's friend was a mistake. He wasn't certain he was this committed to causing havoc. It wasn't like he could just dump his cup and refill it, after all. He was stuck with this until it was empty.

Better get to work on emptying it, then, he resolved. The sooner it was gone, the sooner he could return it to its proper state. And since he intended to offer someone a drink anyway, he might as well start with the person on whom they'd decided.

* * *
The man was clearly sizing Beau up as he approached. Beau allowed himself a thin, smug smile. This was not an uncommon occurrence, now that his appearance had solidified. In the past, he'd always seemed like someone that the victim could trust enough to come within speaking distance. He wasn't sure what that said about Kate; that what she was comfortable with seemed to make everyone else uneasy. He, at least, enjoyed the results.

"Yeah, whaddaya want?" the man drawled as Beau came to a stop a polite distance away.

The rest of the crew was off taking a smoke break. This man had remained, seemingly to take his frustrations out on the fomorian's face. Half of it had been knocked off by a well-placed sledgehammer blow.

"Ugly, isn't it?" Beau commented, staring up at the fomorian's hunched neck and shoulders.

"I'll say. That girl's grandfather had bizarre taste in art."

Ah. So she was blaming the statue on her grandfather. Interesting.

"Girl?" Beau asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The camp manager."

"She's hardly a girl."

The man's expression soured. He shifted, putting weight on both legs and squaring up against Beau. He recognized the posture. The man was preparing for a fight.

"Did you come here for something or did you just show up to be difficult?" the man sneered.

"I came to offer you a drink."

And Beau extended the cup. The man regarded it warily. As the dancer had predicted, he seemed reluctant to drink. Still, he'd been briefed on the rules by Kate, and the oddness of this situation in that context warred in his head.

"Is this some kind of a prank?" he asked warily.

"I am merely offering you a drink. Surely that... girl... warned you about me."

And there was the twist of the knife. Kate tried so hard to make people understand the forest. She used all of her education to devise ways to help people do what they had to, but her options were limited with these temporary workers that wanted to get the job done and then leave and nothing more. All she could do is warn them of the dangers.

Humans really didn't like being told what to do. Especially not by someone they thought was beneath them.

"Screw you, buddy," the man muttered, and turned his back.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Beau replied politely.

Beau lunged and grabbed hold of the back of the man's shirt. The man twisted, trying to land a punch on Beau, but inhuman things aren't just stronger than humans. They're more agile as well. Beau moved with the man, staying behind him, and within seconds he had an arm up and around the man's neck. He lifted slightly, bringing the man up on his toes, ignoring his feeble attempts to pry Beau's arm away.

"I offered you a drink," Beau hissed in his ear. "Even without Kate's warning, you should know how rude it is to refuse."

Beau raised his cup to the man's lips. He tilted it until the sludge poured over the edge and into the man's mouth. He tried to close his mouth, but it was too late, for he began to cough and retch on the taste, and Beau grimly continued to pour.

"You take so much for granted. Food. Water. That the stuff of life will always be close at hand. It made you arrogant. It made you forget what it meant to starve in the long months of winter."

Beau's original intention had been to let him die. However, now he was angry. An offense had been given and perhaps a little coercion had been made, but he'd walked into it willingly. So when the man went slack and his eyes rolled back, Beau hastily took the cup away and dropped him face-first into the ground. The excess liquid spilled out of his mouth and continued to dribble down his chin as Beau grabbed his ankles and dragged him along the ground.

The dancer had said she didn't have a preference as to whether the man was dead or alive when he was brought to the clearing, but Beau certainly cared now.

* * *
The dancer surveyed her supplies. There was the glitter, of course. The sewing kit. The man that Beau had brought, tied up and laying on the ground. And of course, the horse skeleton.

It sat piled in a heap of dirty bones. A number of them were scored with teeth marks.

"This isn't the dapple-gray stallion," Beau commented.

"Nope. That thing was just too big."

"Kate will be upset."

"Kate won't ever find out," the dancer said smugly. "It's not like Bryan's dogs are around to dig these up anymore."

The dancer seemed to realize the implications of what she'd said as soon as it was out of her mouth. Her expression faltered, growing troubled, and then solemn and still. The two stood there, staring down at the bones. The foals killed by the dapple-gray stallion and buried at the edge of the field. The dogs used to dig them out and chew on them and Kate would yell at them, chase them down, and rebury them.

"I miss the dogs," the lead dancer finally said. "Even though Bryan did set them on us a couple times."

"I miss the dogs too."

The lead dancer finally sighed and shook herself. This was the way of things. Their kind came and went, as did the humans, and all things on this earth. Someday, even the stones would die. There was nothing that could be done about it except savor the time they had.

Which led her back to the task at hand. She considered the man prone before her. He was conscious now, struggling against his bonds, his face creased with rage and his eyes wide with terror. He'd been cursing them when he woke so one of the dancers pulled his tongue out and now he was nice and quiet. Well. Quieter.

"I only need his bones and his skin, I think," she said thoughtfully. "If we scatter the rest of him, the wild animals will probably eat it without any humans ever finding the remains."

It wasn't that she was trying to be considerate. She just didn't want to ruin the surprise by Kate finding out any part of her plan.

"I want his face," Beau said, watching with mild interest as the man's struggling grew increasingly more frantic.

"His face?"

"For a special project."

The dancer waited impatiently for further explanation, but none was coming. Finally, she had to admit that Beau wasn't going to tell her, which was deeply annoying. This was part of why the pair didn't exactly get along. He had too many secrets and she had too much of an interest in being involved in everything. Or if not directly executing a scheme, at least involved as a co-conspirator.

"Fine. You can have his face."

She knelt by their victim and grabbed him by the chin, lifting his head to inspect it. Easy enough. She could cut the face off first and give it to Beau. He might as well get something out of this, since he'd been so helpful.

"Can I ask what you're doing with the rest of him?" Beau asked.

"Why should I oblige? You won't indulge me."

The dancer continued her planning, laying out the horse bones alongside the man, who was growing increasingly more panicked. Beau remained stoically silent, watching the proceedings with faint interest. It was only a matter of time. The dancer wouldn't be able to handle it for much longer. Indeed, she kept casting furtive glances over in Beau's direction as she arrayed the horse's spinal column out in a line. Finally, as she was struggling to tear into a bag of glitter, her resolve broke. She threw the plastic bag on the ground and faced Beau square on.

"Okay, so do you remember last Christmas?" she said in a rush. She didn't even give Beau a chance to answer before she continued. "And how real Mari Lwydd came through this past Christmas?"

"I do."

"We are not going to be outdone this year," she hissed triumphantly, spreading her hands at the horse bones, the sacks of glitter, and the man who was frantically begging for his life.

And the musicians, who were anxious to finally contribute, crowded around him until Beau could see nothing of the man from behind the layers of fabric covering their bodies. He couldn't see their faces inside their hoods, but he knew that their eyes were hungry. Uncaring of the victim's cries, the lead dancer stood nearby, humming to herself as she threaded a needle from Kate's sewing kit. There was a lot of work ahead of them. The new and improved Mari Lwydd puppet wasn't going to assemble itself, after all.

The man began to scream. The forest swallowed his cries, as it has done to all who become lost amidst its darkness since the dawn of humanity.