BONUS STORY #3

[malachiical]

BONUS STORY – RULE #6 - THE MISSING FOUR-WHEELER

It was both easier and harder to run the campground than Tyler expected. It was easier because Kate had done so much of the work for him – and it wasn't just keeping the inhumans under control that he dreaded. It was the paperwork. But Kate had spreadsheets and performance review templates and she even had some step-by-step instructions on how to file taxes. Kate was like that. She didn't like to have to remember how to do things that only happened once a year or were rote, mundane tasks. So much of campground management was simply plugging in numbers.

It was harder because there were traces of Kate everywhere.

How do you mourn someone who has died but will still outlive you? How do you move on when the person you're moving on from is still there?

It might be easier if the Lady of Stories hadn't retained so many of her personality traits. It was like she was a snapshot of Kate, frozen in time, but stripped of all her human attachments. She would never change. She would never grow. She simply was. Before, Tyler had hoped that someday she would think of herself as part of his family. There were hints that she was moving in that direction, before this all happened. Now, she never would. It hurt more than he expected. Perhaps more than if she'd never come back at all.

But this was what she'd chosen. She'd been choosing it all along, in small ways that perhaps even she didn't realize. All Tyler could do now is live with his sister's decision.

It really didn't help that everyone still called her Kate from time to time.

"So Kate has an idea to recapture the four-wheeler," Beau said.

He stood outside the kitchen window. It was a nice morning and Tyler was letting the breeze in while he finished his coffee. Unfortunately, it also gave her cup-bearer a reason to drop by and chat.

"Isn't she a goddess now? Can't she just... wave her hands and make it happen?"

"You're thinking of magic again," Beau said solemnly. "She's an ancient."

Which really didn't explain anything. Did Kate find Beau this difficult when she was human? He couldn't imagine otherwise.

"I'll need to find a babysitter," he replied through clenched teeth. "My wife is visiting her sister."

"The child can take care of herself."

"She can NOT! She's an infant!"

Beau paused, his gaze shifted sideways and his eyes narrowed. He seemed to want to say something. Instead his expression grew blank once again as he turned his stare back at Tyler through the window screen.

"I'll ask the dancers," he said.

"What? That's not better!"

But Beau was already walking away. For him, the conversation was over and that was that. Tyler had to wonder if this was what it was like for Kate when she had to deal with him. She didn't talk much about the campground with him and when she did, it was very specifically what she needed from him. Research. His thoughts on a particular problem. She was... reserved.

He wondered if that was his fault. If his aversion to the campground had turned into an aversion for Kate.

But now the campground was his and so were all the problems she'd left behind. Which admittedly were problems that he could actually deal with. Mundane, boring problems, like renovations and staffing issues. Surprisingly, his wife was taking to it well. She was even considering quitting her day job to devote herself to the campground full-time. She had a knack for personnel management. In a way, Tyler pitied their daughter. His wife was going to have plenty of practice yelling at teenagers when their daughter grew up.

The only inhuman problem left that was truly concerning was the four-wheeler.

Kate had lost quite a few four-wheelers over the past two years. It was astonishing, really, how she'd gone through them. He'd assumed that they'd all been destroyed in one way or another. There was one, however, that had survived. Kate didn't tell him about it. He'd had to find out for himself.

Shortly after taking over the campground, he went for a walk through the forest. His intent was to find the dancers and ask them if Kate had imposed any stipulations on them for continuing to stay on the campground (she hadn't). It felt strange to be seeking out anything inhuman. He'd always made an effort to stay far away from these creatures in the past. At least their parents recognized that he had no desire to involve himself with that side of the campground and only made him learn what he needed to know to make it to adulthood. Kate was the one who would go hunt them down.

Even now, the Lady of Stories was sheltering him. She said she would when she met him at the gate to the campground, after she stopped being Kate. The old sheriff was with him. Both of them had been unable to get hold of Kate on her cellphone and after comparing notes, they decided to go check on her together. And there she was, standing in the middle of the road just past the gate. The old sheriff stopped the truck and they got out. It felt... off. All of it. Kate standing there calmly with that crown of branches, glowing with light, and Beau a step behind her.

She didn't have to say much. Tyler knew. He knew she wasn't the Kate he was familiar with. She picked her words sparingly, saying that the campground was hers now, but it was also his. She would rule the inhuman. And he was responsible for the human. She said he didn't need to worry about the creatures that shared the land anymore, to an extent. The forest would always demand respect, regardless of who it belonged to.

There was a funeral. The family demanded it. They buried an empty coffin, but he couldn't bring himself to participate. He lingered on the edges along with the old sheriff and neither of them spoke much. Not many people spoke to him either. The old sheriff ensured that, glaring at anyone who dared get too close with their trite sympathies. It wasn't that he wasn't grieving. He was. Just... not like this.

She wasn't dead, he wanted to scream at them all. She was there. In the woods.

But she was gone and perhaps the funeral was what the family needed to move on. It didn't work for him though, and as people finally dispersed, he looked toward the woods and saw her standing there at the edge, illuminated by her crown, shining against the backdrop of the forest's shadows.

That was it. He hadn't seen her since. He knew she was there, without a doubt, and there were some small signs of her presence. A handful of the campers even left her offerings, mostly cupcakes, which he didn't quite understand, but when he asked one of the camps about it they swore she'd understand the significance.

Then there was the day he went searching for the dancers. And instead of finding the dancers, he found the missing four-wheeler.

He heard it first as an engine revving from somewhere off in the woods. He peered through the trees and saw a pair of tires peeking out from behind a tree. The four-wheeler was on an incline and the tires spun helplessly in the mud, spraying bits of slime behind it. Tyler called out, assuming it was one of his staff who had managed to get it stuck. Didn't they know better than to take it off the roads? He felt like that was a thing Kate wouldn't let the staff do, both on account of how roads protected them from the inhuman and also because she wouldn't want the ground getting torn up.

The engine grew quiet. The only reply was a strange gurgling, barely audible over the low rumble of the four-wheeler's idling. Nervously, Tyler approached. There was very little left in the campground that was a threat, but old habits die hard. He'd grown up in fear of the deep woods. That wouldn't change overnight.

There was something wrong with the four-wheeler. It glistened, like it was covered in a layer of vaseline. Then Tyler rounded the trees enough to see the seat... and discovered it was empty. He glanced around wildly, trying to see if an employee had gotten knocked off – or worse – but it appeared he was the only one around. Heart pounding, he tried to focus on what was in front of him. He needed to kill the engine and then find out what happened to whoever was using it.

He never got close to it. Something stopped him. He briefly felt something like a hand on his shoulder and he froze, disoriented by the sensation. Then his focus returned to the four-wheeler and he realized that the slime coating it was moving. Congealing. Bubbling toward the middle like a slug, slowly oozing its body across the frame.

A tendril like an arm whipped free. It latched onto the handlebar, simply absorbing it into its mass. Another tendril. The creature yanked the steering wheel sharply to the side and with a roar, the four-wheeler lurched forward and away from the tree it was stuck on.

Then it fled. Tyler was already stumbling backwards, desperately thinking of how he would escape a possessed four-wheeler, but the vehicle didn't even spare him another thought. It fled into the woods and soon enough he couldn't even hear its engine anymore.

The touch on his shoulder. The feeling like someone was behind him. The forest was empty, but Tyler knew he wasn't alone.

Kate. Watching over him as she always had. In her own way.

He added the four-wheeler to the list of rules. Just in case. His staff saw it sometimes in the woods and wold him about how it felt like there was someone leading them away from it or chasing it away each time. Slowly, Tyler realized that it wasn't something that Kate had permitted to stay, but rather something she hadn't gotten rid of yet. He found her notes about the gummy bears and their king. How they'd been here longer than even the fairies. This was a manifestation of an entity that, while not ancient like she was, was still very old and very tenacious.

It wouldn't go as easily as some of the other creatures of the woods had. So if Kate had a plan to get rid of it for good, then he would gladly oblige and find a babysitter for the night.

* * *
The babysitter didn't show. Tyler waited anxiously, pacing the living room, as the sun sank lower and lower on the horizon. She was supposed to arrive half an hour ago. He'd found a local highschooler who was willing to work on short notice, so she'd be familiar with the campground's reputation. He also made sure she knew the newest set of rules. Just in case. Surely nothing would happen to her between the gate (which he'd left unlocked for her) and the house. Surely.

But then he saw two people approaching the house. They weren't coming from the road. They were coming from the forest. One could be a highschooler, he thought, as she was much shorter than the other. Unfortunately since the other person was Beau, Tyler had no doubt that she was actually the lead dancer. He'd seen her a handful of times since taking over the campground. Kate's notes wavered back and forth on the dancers, but eventually she admitted that they were 'all right'. That was all. Just 'all right'. He supposed that was why the Lady of Stories permitted them to stay.

Tyler reluctantly opened the door for the pair. Beau had his hood up with his free hand in his pocket and was scowling. Tyler had to assume it was because of the dancer. The two didn't seem like they'd be the type to get along. Indeed, they looked like complete opposites at the moment. Beau was attired in his drab hoodie with his multitude of piercings, like he'd just gotten back from goth night at the club. The dancer looked like a kindergarten teacher. She even had a pastel blue smock decorated with ducks wearing raincoats.

"And where the little anger I'll be watching over?" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

Beau's scowl deepened.

"Uh, we discussed this already," Tyler said, resisting the urge to simply slam the door in their faces and walk away. "I hired a babysitter. A human babysitter."

"And I met her at the gate and told her something had come up and she wasn't needed anymore," Beau replied.

"I'm so excited!" the dancer chimed in. "We're going to have so much fun!"

"I am not trusting you with my daughter."

"Kate trusts us," she replied.

"Kate isn't human anymore!"

The outburst startled even Tyler. The dancer's smile vanished and she stared at Tyler, wide-eyed. Beau's face didn't change. It probably wasn't possible to scowl even further. But Tyler wasn't paying attention to them. He was more surprised at himself, at the sudden intensity of the emotions churning inside him. He felt... angry. Upset. Kate – she wasn't human anymore – and he didn't know if he could trust her. You couldn't trust inhuman things.

But she'd also been his sister.

"I'm sorry," he said, stepping back and leaving the door open. "Come inside."

Tyler wasn't agreeing to leaving his infant daughter with these creatures. He was buying time, long enough to sort through his emotions and decide what he was going to do. He knew, logically, he shouldn't be worried. The dancers were dangerous, but if Kate's notes were correct, they were only dangerous to certain people. Not only that, but this was a bargain. Inhuman things didn't go back on bargains they'd made. Besides, the Lady of Stories was aware of what her cup-bearer was up to, and surely all the risk she'd taken as a human to save his daughter would count for something.

It was just the principle of the thing. And the fact that his wife would be furious. She didn't mind having the protection of an ancient thing, but that was from a distance. She still hadn't quite gotten over having their baby kidnapped by a cannibalistic horse.

Neither had he, honestly.

Tyler's old room was now his daughter's room. They hadn't redecorated it yet. His wife wanted to paint the walls, but for now they'd settled with some new rugs and moving the baby furniture in. Pearl lay sleeping in her crib. It was an old-fashioned name, but his wife had wanted to name her after her grandmother. Tyler knew there was no way she'd get teased in school for it, being part of the campground family, so he'd gone along with it.

The trio hovered in the doorway, staring in at the crib. Tyler felt it at least polite to let them look at the baby. This wasn't committing to anything.

"You know the inhumans helped rescue her," Beau said.

"I do. I donated the skin for the bridle."

Beau was polite enough to ignore the bite in Tyler's tone.

"Do you know how many of us helped? It was more than just the harvesters."

"None of you did it out of the goodness of your hearts," Tyler snapped, unwilling to be swayed like this. "Don't try that on me."

"I wouldn't. You know as well as your sister did that we're creatures of our nature."

"And we," the dancer said casually, examining her nails, "only target those whose paths we can infer. Children, especially ones this young, are a blank slate."

Tyler was silent for a moment. He understood now what they were saying. Pearl would be safe with the dancer not because the dancer chose to keep her safe, but because it was her very nature. Unalterable. Just as Kate would no longer change, nor would the dancer, and especially not during the time Peal would be under her care.

"I didn't know you used logic," Tyler said.

"I don't like it," Beau said stiffly. "It's a human thing."

"I appreciate the effort."

"So you'll go with us?"

Tyler took a deep breath and then said that he would. The dancer clapped her hands with glee, but gently, so that she didn't wake the baby. However, Tyler's daughter stirred, opening her eyes and staring sleepily up at the people crowded around her crib. Reluctantly, Tyler started going through the spiel he would have given the babysitter. Where the food was. Her bedtime schedule. The dancer listened attentively, but Tyler wasn't certain if that was an act or not. Did inhuman things actually know how to care for children?

It was only for a few hours, most likely, Tyler told himself as he finished.

"You owe me," Beau said firmly, jabbing a finger at the drowsy baby.

Which seemed like an odd thing to tell a baby, but Beau was inhuman.

"Okay, have a good evening hunting monsters!" the lead dancer said in a sing-song, escorting them to the door. "It'll be fine, I promise! It's not like I'm going to let the baby drink all of Kate's leftover liquor or anything crazy like that!"

She grabbed his arm and hastily pulled him toward the door. He went along with it, too overwhelmed to protest. But wasn't this his house now, Tyler thought in a daze as the door shut behind him. So why did he just forcibly get shown the exit?

* * *
Tyler expected to meet up with Kate once in the woods, but it turned out that it was just him and Beau doing the hard labor. The Lady of Stories had a plan, Beau said, once they were in the forest. She was going to keep her distance so the gummy bear that had claimed the four-wheeler wouldn't catch on. It was fleeing from her, after all. That was how it'd survived for so long. That and she didn't know how to get rid of them, not really. Not when they had a realm of their own, sitting somewhere between the campground and the gray world. She could only send them back for a little while.

So it would be up to Beau and him to lay the bait. The plan was quite simple. They would dig a pit, just deep enough to trap a four-wheeler inside. And then they'd bait it with gasoline cans.

Tyler had to admit this was a better idea than most of Kate's plans had been. That wasn't a high bar, though. At least it wasn't 'I'm going to go into the woods and hit it until it stops moving' like so many of her "plans" had been, but it wasn't much better.

"But why gasoline cans?" Tyler protested.

"Because it's close to the off season and there's not enough campers to find someone she dislikes enough to use as bait."

Tyler laughed and then quickly sobered up. Beau might not have been joking. Kate was a ruthless person sometimes, when she felt she had to be – right or wrong. There was a very real possibility that hadn't changed before she turned into something inhuman. Unnerved, Tyler took the offered shovel and stabbed it into the ground.

Turned out that Beau wasn't the type to dig. In fact, he'd only procured one shovel. And when Tyler told Beau it was his turn to dig, the inhuman only stared at the shovel with narrowed eyes, his arms folded across his chest.

"I don't do the digging," Beau said calmly. "That's not how this works."

Tyler was not as accustomed to hard work like this as Kate had been. He struggled, his arms growing tired as the night lingered on. At times, he thought he heard the distant roar of an engine, but Beau didn't react and Tyler put it out of his mind. The pit deepened. It was perhaps two feet now, not enough to trap anything, really. Tyler couldn't help but feel resentful. This was not hunting. This was manual labor. Had Beau secured a babysitter from among the inhuman and dragged him out here just to avoid doing the digging himself? It seemed petty enough to be something an inhuman would do.

At the very least, he thought bitterly, Kate should have been considerate enough to say hi.

But she wasn't human anymore. These things didn't matter to her.

It still hurt.

The night wanted on and Tyler had to admit that the pit wasn't progressing fast enough. It'd be morning before it was deep enough to keep a four-wheeler from climbing its way out. If the soil wasn't so soft, he'd have more confidence, but eventually it would collapse one of the walls and be free. Perhaps the delay would be long enough to give the Lady of Stories her chance to do... whatever it was she wanted to do. He stabbed the shovel in the soil and asked Beau if he thought the pit was deep enough. The inhuman considered it for a moment before shrugging and admitting that he really didn't know. Kate hadn't given specific instructions. She'd just said to dig a pit. He'd assumed that Tyler would understand what to do from there.

"No, can't say I know anything about trapping a possessed four-wheeler," Tyler sighed. "Let's just put the gas cans in there and hope for the best. We're running out of time."

The campground wasn't closed yet. He still had work to do in the morning. Beau agreed and the two of them lugged gas cans in and carefully positioned them around the pit. Then Tyler stepped back and surveyed his handiwork.

It was... rather pathetic. Even he had to admit that this was the shabbiest trap he'd ever seen.

"Do we cover it with branches or something?" Tyler suggested.

But Beau wasn't paying attention to him anymore. He was staring off into the woods.

"We're too late for that," he said calmly, as the roar of an engine tore through the night, far too close for Tyler's liking.

Beau walked calmly around the pit to put it between him and the approaching four-wheeler. Tyler hastily followed, suddenly wishing he'd brought Kate's old shotgun with him. He wasn't in the habit of carrying it because the campground, well, it was safe now. And he figured that both Kate and Beau would protect him. But the inhuman beside him seemed to have forgotten he existed. His free hand was in the pockets of his hoodie and he stared straight ahead, his multitude of piercings shining in the light from the approaching headlights.

Tyler raised a hand to shield his eyes. There was a stutter to the four-wheeler's engine. Like it was on the verge of stalling. The trees shook violently as it forced its way through, climbing over young saplings that got in its way. Then, with a throaty roar, it burst through, its front wheels lifting off the ground as its tires spun in anxious fervor to reach them.

The front of it dipped into the pit. It tilted. Tyler's heart leapt, lodging painfully in his throat. This was going to work. It was hovering on two wheels now and then – it began to tip, its descent to the ground rapidly accelerating.

It landed on its side in the pit, wheels spinning uselessly in the air.

"We did it!" Tyler whooped.

Beau took a step back. Tyler's excitement immediately vanished. He didn't have Kate's reflexes, back when she was campground manager, but he'd still grown up on this land. He knew when to be concerned. Hastily, he backed up as well, and the pair watched – one with inhuman calm, the other with growing dismay – as the slime coating the four-wheeler began to ripple. It moved with purpose, first encompassing the wheels, which quickly grew still and quiet. The only sound was the hum of the engine and a sucking noise, like pulling one's foot out of deep mud.

Then an arm shot out of the slime coating all four wheels. Inside it floated a piece of scrap metal, like a bone, reinforcing the jellied flesh as it separated into fingers and clutched at the earth beneath it. Another arm tore out of the gummy bear's mass. The four-wheeler, Tyler thought. They were ripping pieces off of it to build new limbs.

With a groan, two of the arms on one side straightened. Their fingers dug into the soil and slowly, painfully, the four-wheeler tilted back over. It hit the ground with a heavy thump and for a moment did not move. Dimly, Tyler thought that he should be running. Or putting Beau between himself and the now rightside-up machine. Something.

This was why Kate was better at running the campground than him. She didn't think. She acted.

The four-wheeler lifted itself off the ground a fraction, flexing its new legs. Testing them. Then... it straightened them. Like a spring. It happened so fast that Tyler barely recognized what had happened. The four-wheeler leapt, like a cricket, throwing its considerable mass up into the air.

It was going to come down right on them.

Then, before Tyler even had a chance to comprehend he was in danger, there was someone between him and the creature. Her brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. And she looked as she always had, with her khakis and her polo and Tyler wanted to yell at her to get out of the way, to move, but this wasn't her, she wasn't human, and she wasn't in danger anymore.

The Lady of Stories was as unflinching as Kate had been. Except now, she had the power to back it up.

She drew her knife in a long, smooth sweep, and held it aloft. The tip pointed towards the sky. The gummy bear four-wheeler reached the apex of its leap, almost touching the forest canopy, and began to fall earthwards. There was a thump, like a fist to his chest, and Tyler's breath was knocked from his lungs. But the four-wheeler was thrown violently backwards, smashing through the trees like it was nothing more than a baseball hit with a bat.

For a moment there was only silence. Then they heard the sounds of the four-wheeler scrambling to its feet and the roar of its engine as it fled. The Lady of Stories let out a deep sigh and put her knife away.

"If you could do that all along then why did you need me!?" Tyler yelled.

"It felt right to do it this way."

She sounded puzzled. Like she didn't even understand why she had to explain herself.

She wasn't Kate. She was the Lady of Stories. Tyler repeated this in his head, over and over, but the mantra held no comfort for him. She was right there in her stupid khakis that she probably bought out of the men's section because fashion be damned she needed pockets and she was looking at him with that face that was hers and he... and he didn't know how he was supposed to feel anymore.

"You're not Kate," he gasped, covering his face with both hands. "I keep – I keep wanting you to be Kate."

She didn't even apologize. Kate would have apologized – or tried to, at the least. She just looked at him in confusion for a moment and then turned to face the direction the four-wheeler had gone. Her jaw tightened. Tyler flinched, for he knew what this meant. He saw the anger in her eyes. He'd already seen the results of it, against the creatures that intruded on her land, against the campers who broke her rules and defiled her campground.

She took a step forward. Two. And then she became the beast, her anger made manifest, breaking free of its cage within her heart. She stood tall, cut out of the darkness itself, and the light of her eyes was dwarfed only by the light of her crown, floating about the creature's head like a halo. She opened her mouth to reveal the long fangs and the light like coals glowing within. She paused only a moment, long enough for Beau to grab hold of her neck and swing himself up onto her back. Then she leapt into a run, slipping between the trees as gracefully as a deer.

And they were gone. All of them. Vanishing into the woods. Tyler was alone, just him, the cans of gasoline, and the shovel.

* * *
It was close to dawn by the time he returned to the house. He was exhausted. He'd taken the time to put up warning tape around the pit so no one fell in and broke an ankle, but he'd leave filling it back in for another day. He saw the lead dancer standing on the front porch as he approached the house.

"Everything go okay?" he asked.

"Oh sure, sure. We had a lovely time. I'd be happy to babysit again someday. She needs a break every now and then."

"She needs a break?"

The dancer stared at him for a moment and he stared dumbly back, too exhausted to really comprehend the conversation they were having.

"Uh, your wife," the lead dancer finally said. "I was referring to your wife."

"Oh. Right."

Wearily, Tyler glanced back over his shoulder one last time. For his entire childhood the dawn was heralded in by the roar of the beast, coming to claim its prey. He hated the sound. He hated the little girl's cries. But now... he couldn't help but yearn for them, if only to see her again. Even if she was still angry and was still the beast. And maybe... maybe she'd come up to the house and let go of her anger and sit with him and they could talk and things could feel... normal.

"She's not your sister, you know," the lead dancer remarked casually.

"I know."

He couldn't keep the exhaustion out of his voice. It was just so hard having to remember this time and time again.

"It doesn't mean you can't love her. You don't have to keep on grieving Kate every time you see her."

"I don't think I can love her," Tyler sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if I loved her when she was human. We weren't exactly close, you know. Sure, she was my sister, but that doesn't necessarily mean I loved her. Now she's inhuman and it just feels like... I'm stuck here. Like nothing will ever be resolved. She won't ever change."

"Kate loved the land," the dancer said. "It wasn't a love that would ever be returned, at least, not in a way that you humans are familiar with. It never stopped her from loving it, nonetheless, and she would give anything for it. Isn't that devotion of the highest form?"

Sacrifice. Tyler swallowed hard. He didn't want that to be him.

"Anyway," she continued. "I'm not saying you have to be like she was. This is your land now and you can treat it however you like. But I think you're more like her than you believe. And if you love the land and you love this family and all the sacrifices they've made, then I think that means you love the Lady as well."

"I miss her."

His voice cracked. The lead dancer glanced in the direction of the family graveyard and even though it was out of eyeshot, he knew that she was looking at the tombstone that marked an empty grave.

"Yeah. A lot of people do. But she's the Lady of Stories and stories, well, they have to have an ending. So Kate's story ended."

"It hurts."

A thin smile from her.

"The best ones always do."

She skipped off the front porch and across the yard. At the front gate she turned around one last time.

"I'll see you around Christmas!" she hollered with a wave. "We made a surprise for Kate, but she won't care anymore, so we'll show it to you instead! It's going to be great. So. Great."

Why, he thought, watching her leave with dismay, did that sound like such an ominous promise?