“Ivan brother Dmitri is fine. Deserve have legs break,” Ivan went on. “Is okay because Ivan use table legs what fix Ivan brother Dmitri legs. Just in time since Ivan mother come over for breakfast but Ivan sold last table so have no way serve breakfast for Ivan mother. So Ivan put Ivan brother Dmitri with table legs for legs in kitchen, bend back so what make into Ivan brother Dmitri-table. Serve muffin on Ivan brother Dmitri-table, make Ivan mother happy, is good for health.”

  Burney’s scream indicated he was the only one touched by this story.

  As they journeyed past the tents of the Civil War reenactors and the ambulance carrying Lincoln to the hospital, Steve was able to spot the gap in the trees where he’d turned to avoid the panzer tanks. There were no tire treads to show pursuit, and even though he knew it was all fake, it still made him a little uneasy to enter the trees and walk back toward the road.

  Just as passing through the gap in the trees had felt like a transition to another time, so entering the thick pine and oak branches felt like crossing a barrier. Trees reached out to offer protection or to hide dangers. The nearby road now roared with the sound of passing, unseen vehicles. Instead of spent bits of paper powder containers and horse droppings, the forest floor was littered with brass cartridges and the occasional magazine that had been dropped by a reenactor who should have known better.

  Steve stopped at the sight of a Nazi soldier walking his direction. The man was clad in forest green, trench coat flapping with his movement. The automatic rifle the soldier wielded, polished and strapped to his shoulder, was only the second most intimidating part of the man’s outfit. Twin polished swastikas dotting his jacket, colorful medals at his chest, iron cross at his neck, and a double set of Gestapo lightning bolts on his steel helmet all glinted in the tree-shattered light of the setting sun.

  The Nazi soldier paused upon viewing the demons. Then he bent down and started collecting the littered brass cartridges.

  “I can’t believe someone would disrespect mother nature this way,” the soldier said, picking up the metal. “Do you know how long it takes these things to decompose? Awful, just awful. Hey Ivan.”

  “Hello Dwight,” Ivan said as the group past the environmentally conscious SS officer.

  After a short distance through the trees, now clean thanks to Dwight’s totally-not-actually-a-Nazi efforts, they came upon a wide plain. The rural highway Steve had escaped curved into this road, and bisected it just enough so that the allied and axis powers could see a clearly divided battle line.

  Unlike the Civil War and medieval soldiers, the World War Two re-enactors heavily utilized trees and cover in their mock battles. This meant that this was the most accident-prone of the groups. Not because people would actually shoot one another. Nearly all the accidents were would-be snipers falling out of trees.

   The tanks, however, could never fully utilize the cover of the trees. They fought in the brush as much as they could. But it would inevitably have to come down to a set-piece battle in the open field. Tanks and jeeps by the dozen were headed back to the tree line, down the gentle slope back toward where Ivan and the others were standing.

   “World War Two reenactors have camp what for fix tanks and show off different weapons,” Ivan said, pointing toward the edge of the trees. Grease-faced mechanics drank beer alongside Nazi and American-clad soldiers while trying to figure out if anyone knew how to repair a near-torn break line on a 1939 model panzer.

   “Ivan make many tables for World War Two group because always use what for target practice,” Ivan continued. “Ivan not like when shoot Ivan table. But is good for money because they buy many new table, so is good for health.”

   Steve watched as second world war reenactors gathered around gas stoves and propane grills to cook cheeseburgers. They ate chocolate bars with period-accurate branding taped over the modern labels, and bubblegum they pretended tasted terrible. While reenactors all over coughed at the attempt to smoke filter-less cigarettes, countless surrendering French jokes echoed across the gathered mock soldiers.

   “So, uh, which tent is yours?” Steve asked, looking around for which one of the green US Army surplus tents would be Ivan’s. He searched for one made out of tables, but none could be found.

   “Ivan tent over here. Come,” Ivan said, leading them back around the reenactment camp and once more toward the Civil War battlefield. Instead of heading straight there, though, Ivan angled away from both groups. In short time, Steve and his companions found themselves situated at the tip of a wide, flat hill.

   This hill overlooked the entire landscape. To the far right was the medieval battlers, eating ribs they pretended were mutton. To the center was the Civil War soldiers, munching on deer jerky and pretending their instant biscuits were hardtack. And to the left were the World War Two reenactors, whose food was the exact same as the food eaten and prepared in World War Two. They just had to pretend it was moldy and tasted terrible. Some had apparently left their food out in the sun for a few weeks just to be accurate, but these were only the most devoted soldiers who felt that a nasty case of the runs was a worthwhile part of the reenactment experience.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

   Behind Steve was another hill that mirrored the one on which he stood. It was quite a distance away, but only half of a hill, really. One side was the lush green of a picturesque hill. But at the crest, a line of thick cedars cut the hill in half.

   Nothing moved in that wall of cedars. Darkness from the setting sun seemed to roll into the trees of that opposite hill more quickly than it did on the central hill that housed Ivan’s tent. It seemed to enclose the three periods of reenactments, allowing them to feel in another world. Here, the cloistered atmosphere allowed the imagination to transport others to far-off places. Of course, the ambulance sirens fleeing down the road to try and fix Abraham Lincoln’s multiple compound fractures took away a little from the image, but this was a minor and temporary interference.

   “This Ivan tent. You come to tent,” Ivan said.

  Surprisingly, there was no resemblance of a table making up Ivan’s tent. It seemed a normal, albeit quite large, canvas structure. Steve slapped himself in the head for thinking otherwise. A wide tent like that of a Roman legionary general, Ivan’s tent seemed appropriate for the man who wielded respect from all three types of reenactors.

   Ivan led the group through wide flaps and inside the fur-carpeted cave of his tent. Twin posts held the center high over their heads, and a wide bed sat in the back end absolutely surrounded with tables. It looked like Ivan was preparing to host a hundred dinners all at once. And the large barrels which gave a musty aroma from the opposite end of the tent indicated that such parties were likely to occur.

   The tent was big enough to have two openings. Ivan entered and exited the tent in quick succession and stepped aside to hold the flaps open for Steve and his friends to exit. There in the yard outside Ivan’s tent were implements of such a variety it made Steve tilt his head to try and make sense of it all.

   A long table that would have looked at home in a Viking mead hall stretched away from the tent. Every square inch of the table was covered in weapons. From the foam-tipped implements the medieval soldiers bore, to what appeared to be some sort of chrome-and LED light-covered laser rifle. Next to this was a refrigerator that hummed happily thanks to the most haphazardly assembled solar generator ever successfully created.

   The solar panels must have also powered a set of Christmas lights that surrounded a wide-leafed fern. What purpose this fulfilled, Steve would never know.

  Encircling a crackling copper stove was a still-burning still. Clear liquid drip-dripped out of a spiraled copper tube, and Ivan stirred the wooden fires with a spear taken from his table of weapons. There was a trigger mechanism that increased the flow of clear liquid. Ivan pulled the trigger a few times and adjusted the speed of the dripping still. Steve thought a trigger a strange thing to have on a still, but didn’t comment on it.

  Next to this was an enormous grill made out of perfectly aligned iron bars. The bars made a basket weave pattern atop cinder blocks. A low flame inside the grill indicated it had been recently used, and Steve’s stomach grumbled at what might be in the fridge.

  A massive pile of sticks sat beside the grill. Steve was incorrect in assuming that this was firewood, because Ivan fetched a pair of cut logs from a neat stack on the other side of the still and tossed them atop the grill’s low flame.

  The pile of sticks were next to a workshop with no less than a dozen finished and unfinished tables set atop stands and table saws and work benches. Another long table that rivaled the Viking-like weapons table had more raw materials and woodworking implements carefully placed in leather holders. This section was under a canvas awning, protected from the weather, so that Ivan could work on his tables at all hours and under all conditions.

  Also under the awning were the sticks. Such a protected place made no sense for what was obviously an unkempt pile. Steve was about to ask about them when a medieval period soldier, his head made up in a thick, blood-stained bandage, approached the tent. He carried a broken spear in one hand, and in the other he held a stick about the thickness and length of his arm.

  “Ivan,” was all the soldier said before making a slight tilt of the head. He presented his stick to Ivan.

  “Spasiba,” Ivan said, and took the stick. The soldier, his task apparently complete, turned and walked away as Ivan tossed the stick onto the pile.

  “If I give you a stick, will you give us a sandwich?” Steve asked, wondering if Ivan traded in real money or honored some sort of bartering system. Steve wondered if he could trade the use of Burney as a cook-fire in exchange for something. Or perhaps he could get Gore to summon some hellhounds. It was safe to assume that a hellhound pelt would be worth at least a sandwich or two.

  Ivan laughed at Steve’s question, and switched the bucket that collected the drip-dripping still’s concoction.

  “Ivan not just make sandwich,” Ivan noted. From inside his armor, Ivan withdrew three more sticks, all of varying sizes, and tossed them onto his stick pile. “Is not so simple.”

  “I can pay you,” Steve said.

  “Ivan not accept money.”

  “How about a trade? Burney would be great for a realistic flame-thrower victim.”

  Burney screamed in protest at this notion.

  “Shut up, Burney, I’m negotiating,” Steve said.

  “Last flamethrower we have in World War Two mock battle not go so well. Burn Ivan table, so Ivan have to break flamethrower man and break flamethrower man flamethrower,” Ivan explained. “Is okay, though. Flamethrower man only lose hair on eighty percent of body, and Ivan get new distillery.” Ivan patted his still and the little US Army surplus symbol painted into its side. Suddenly, Steve understood why it had a trigger.

  “You can has sandwich, though,” Ivan said. He took his table leg war hammer and tapped it lovingly against his open palm.

  “I can has?” Steve asked.

  “You can has. If you is can defeat Ivan in battle.”