The early morning sun filtered through the rustling leaves and swaying boughs. The grass was slick with dew, and the air was clear and refreshing. Stalking through the underbrush, the wampus cat slunk with its belly low to the ground, floopy ears laid back. Its whiskers twitched, pink nose sniffing the subtle scents of its prey standing there, blissfully unaware in a clearing - a proud stag with rolled back shoulders and an egotistical slant to his posture, antlered head poised toward the sky as if looking down on the rest of the forest.
The wampus cat's butt wiggled excitedly, twin tails swishing in anticipation. A twig cracked under his paw, and the stag looked in the cat's direction, standing rigid. The stout deer craned its neck to get a better look at the tall grass.
He got it.
The folkloric feline exploded out of his lush cover and pounced, claws raking bleeding furrows in the grazer and jaws clamping around the neck. The tails constricted around the bucking buck like furry pythons, sealing his movements. The back legs broke free and mule kicked frantically, and the stag slammed its side into the base of a tree trunk. The cat was dislodged, forced to recalculate an attack strategy. It found its opening and bit the throat, crushing the windpipe. Unsure if the major arteries were severed, the cat wrapped its tails around the stag's antlers, like handles, and flexed, lifting the bleeding, frenzied herbivore. He slammed the stag repeatedly into the ground and tree trunks, waiting for the game beast to just shut the fuck up for a second and quit thrashing.
With a final slam, the cat heard the stag's neck break, the head twisting at a gruesome angle with a cracked vertebra clearly bulging against the skin. The stag went limp and slumped, and the wampus cat gave a self-satisfied 'That's right!' nod. Patting himself on the back, the wampus cat started trotting back to the apartment, dragging the fresh kill behind it by his trailing, powerful tails. Soon, three pairs of bloody paw prints stamped across the carpet, and the wampus cat deposited the carcass on Richie's legs as he slept, wrapped up in his bed roll.
Richie's eyes fluttered open to the sight of the dead stag's glassy eyes looking at him, vacant, antlers twisted in the glare and Richie's blurry vision to look like a torturous crown of thorns.
"Agh!" he spastically scoot back out of his sleeping bag, soaked with blood, and slowly regained comprehension.
The mountain lion with spare parts was sitting, limbs neatly folded, with an expectant expression.
Did he bring me a present, like house cats do with birds and mice? Richie gaped, incredulous. I can't believe that tendency transcends the species barrier like this.
"Well, guess it's venison tonight." Richie got up and stretched. "Good work, I'll clean, skin, and gut this poor bastard after I wake up a bit."
Cuppet had already put on a pot of coffee, anticipating this. Unlike the others, with their organic bodies, the marionette had no physical need, nay, ability, to sleep. By contrast, Cuppy looked like a grub cocooned in his sleeping bag, and Freyja was sprawled on her back, belly exposed, snoring like an earthquake.
"How long do you intend to sleep in?" Richie kicked each of them in the side, waking them.
Freyja growled in the back of her throat. "The sun's barely up, what are you talking about?"
Richie beamed. "That's right. Quit sleeping the day away. It's been nothing but one long nightmare for the better part of a month, and you want to go back to bed? We finally had some good luck, and I'm not wasting a drop. Get your lazy asses up, we're having fun whether you like it or not, goddammit."
Freyja grimaced at the stag carcass, briefly disturbed. She blinked when she saw the wampus cat licking blood off its paws.
"Hey!" she barked at the puma. "I was going to hunt the Prince of the Forest!"
The cat grunted at her. Early bird gets the worm, sleepy potato gets blight.
"Morning already?" Cuppy yawned and stretched, his body making little creaking noises. "Fine catch today, weird kitty." he moved to pat the wampus cat's head.
It very casually bit his hand up just past the wrist, drawing blood and snarling as the puppeteer's limb was locked in the feline's jaws.
"Someone's a sourpuss." Cuppy smiled vacantly and petted the cryptid with his other hand. The thing's tails swished rapidly like angry fan blades to voice its chagrin.
Freyja stared at the display, nonplussed.
"Could he give less of a shit?' she said.
Richie scratched out his ear. "As a matter of fact, he could. Use your keen sniffer to help me keep out anymore live contraband on his part. The rattle was my only warning last time he brought in a nondescript bag."
Rattle? Freyja frowned.
"Anyway, Pup, how's the java coming along?"
He turned and saw the table already set, coffee artfully brewed with ample sugar and cream, delicate little hipster leaf patterns engraved in the skim.
"Bro says it's getting cold." Cuppy said, his head in the wampus cat's jaws as he absentmindedly tried to find the jaw hinge.
"Well tell us that next time." Richie sighed.
He didn't freak out and yell this time though - progress.
As they sat around the table, something came to his mind.
"You know," Richie said, "things are finally looking up. We've got refrigeration, ample lighting, full larders, and the bed frames are coming along nicely. Time goes quick when you're having fun. Only nine days till Halloween, and I think it will be my first chance to go on real trick or treating, too. But despite all this good fortune, there's still something I can't seem to grasp."
He gestured to Holly and Chikita, who had their own places at the table, and their own coffee mugs. Holly was in her own little world, reading a thick archaeology book that looked like you could bludgeon someone with it, and Chikita was smoking her pipe with a bemused expression.
"WHY ARE THEY STILL HERE?!?" Richie shouted.
Ah. There's the tantrum.
Chikita squinted at the sudden yelling, as did Freyja. "Geez, calm down you senile fruit bat. In case you forgot, I saved your ass from a two ton fleabag with scorpion tail grafting not long back. You owe me, and a spot living here is the only acceptable payment of that debt. Unless you've got a buncha gold laying around somewhere. Or sake. Or tobacco." The blue haired swordswoman said, counting on her fingers all the things that she'd pretend to go away in exchange for. Holly glanced over, dogging the ear of the page she was on in the book. "Don't forget that the tracers still exist. One of them pops up and I'm not around, there's no chance they'll leave you alone. Gotta have me here to give them the override code that makes them go away. " she said, adjusting her glasses with a smirk. "Especially the holographic ones. Can't kill those." she added. "And besides, I don't exactly have anywhere else to go. The institute's probably painted a big ass target on my back since I've gone missing."
"We all saved each other." Richie said, digging in his heels. "Until that trick with the ice chasm, you were practically deadweight. Some assassin! Good grief."
Chikita felt her blood pressure rise. "Give me a break! That's cause I wore him down for you whelps before he ever surfaced! I had to fight while out of ice and vomiting blood, what's your excuse?!"
Richie flared up.
"The fuck's that supposed to mean?!"
Freyja's ears twitched. "What are you guys even arguing about? It's too early for this." She looked at Holly, wearing a onesie pair of blue pajamas with feet. Under the collar, a sliver of angry red flesh was visible. Under the panes of her glasses, Freyja saw that Holly's eyes were also darkened and bloodshot. When she remembered her coffee was there, seemingly briefly plopping back into her body after drifting off somewhere far away, Holly drained it in one long gulp and slid the glass to Cuppet for a refill.
"Didn't sleep well?" Freyja asked.
"As a matter of fact, no, I didn't." Holly groaned. "You ever have every nerve of your skin uniformly severed and sewn back together?"
Freyja shook her head.
"I can't recommend it." Holly said. She hissed a little when turning the page aggravated her raw flesh.
"That reminds me, we need to buy, steal, or make anesthetic." Cuppy chirped up.
Freyja went a little pale.
Note to self. Next time I get grievously injured and need surgery - keep it to myself. she gulped.
"And a TV." Richie raised his hand.
"You still owe me a barrel of booze." Chikita added.
Cuppet noted down their shopping list with a quill and parchment.
"We gathering supplies today then?" Freyja asked.
"Yeah." Richie said. "We blew the budget already." he gestured to the wampus cat, sharpening its claws on a deluxe cat tree.
"Fancy that." Freyja sweat.
"I thought you were all broke drifters until now, what budget?" Holly asked, looking up from her book again.
Cuppy gestured to Holly's ransacked purse.
"You fucking parasites!" Holly gripped her hair, then immediately shuddered at the strain on her sore body.
"Oh! Also," Cuppy added, "need a few more dyes. Holly's refurbished outfit just needs the finishing touches." he smiled. "I salvaged the angry fibers from her busted secret agent costume and sewed them back together with my own threads. Shouldn't have any more clingy incidents." Cuppy hummed. "D'ya think the institute would pay us to bring them monsters?" he asked his former teacher.
"I cannot get a read on your moral compass." Holly said. "Weren't we just talking about removing my old bosses from the equation and protecting the foreign bodies?"
"Be that as it may, it's not like all of them are just wild animals. The manticore asshole was out for blood. Eating us afterwards was just a bonus. Sounds like the leprechaun that busted Richie's ribs was a power-grubbing murderous thug too." Freyja said.
"Leprechaun?" Chikita tried and failed to hold back cackling.
"Shut up!" Richie bristled. He could have sworn someone had given him grief for losing to O'Gravy already. "He got bigger, ok?!"
Freyja smirked playfully. "You should really thank him in Hell, you know. If it weren't for that little bugger, we wouldn't be a threesome." Richie spat out coffee.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Cuppet, brandishing a mop, smacked him, to no reaction.
"One," Richie said, "rephrase that. Two, why do you assume I'll go to Hell?"
Cuppy smiled vacantly. "Well, friends stick together, right? Frey's a demon, so she's probably going in timeout when she dies." he chirped.
"Screw that!" Richie barked.
"Putting ethics aside," Holly said, "the Institute knows all of our faces. How do you intend to bargain with them? While I admit that with the tracer system down, the Director will be desperate to patch up security, I highly doubt he's going to let bygones be bygones. If he gets the chance, he'll send all of us to the black ops gallows, if he doesn't just shoot on sight."
Cuppy knitted a pink fuzzy noose and peeked through it.
Richie grit his teeth and held his own throat, horrified.
"They don't know all our faces." Freyja clicked her tongue at Chikita.
The vagabond slowly became aware of everyone staring at her.
"Huh?" she pointed to herself.
"Well, you were already hunting monsters, right? Why not chip in?" Freyja shrugged.
Chikita growled. "As if! We beat one mangy lion together and have a pending transaction, and you think we're suddenly roommates?! Why do I have to help pay for your new curtains? I haven't gotten paid yet in the first place!"
Freyja poked Chikita's forehead.
"Because you haven't taught us shit yet, you've eaten all our food, your existence gives Richie panic attacks, you led that lion to us in the first place, and I'll set you on fire in your sleep if you don't." Freyja said.
Chikita gawked. "You- You-!"
"Going straight to Hell, I know." Freyja shrugged again.
Chikita sighed. "Fine. I'll teach you the art of the backyards first though. I don't monster hunt on..." she paused. "Tuesdays?"
"It's Sunday." Cuppy yawns.
"Yeah that. Anyway, whoever gives a shit to learn, gather 'round." the swordswoman said gruffly, folding her arms.
They did so.
"Like I said before, you can't directly enter the Backyards by a physical search. You've identified the fissures into that dreamspace as wandering corridors. They drift like logs caught in a tide, to and from randomized destinations. When spread over a stagnant causal area, like this city now, you can start to identify patterns to where they tend to wander and overlap. While you can learn to perceive and enter the doors, you can't actually conjure them as you see fit. Being able to detect them is one thing, being able to sense their changing locations over vast distances is another task altogether. With sharpened practice, you may be able to expand the scope of your psychic radar to maybe a kilometer, though I've heard apocryphal accounts of those who can sense all openings within a ten kilometer radius. Either way, half the battle is already won for you, since the Faceless Man was kind enough to leave the door wedged open for us here. I'm placing my bets on you guys that this decision is going to blow up in the bastard's lack of a face. A bound wandering corridor is the perfect opportunity for you all to learn how to pry the Backyards wide open. Before we start the lesson, I need a volunteer." Chikita said.
Cuppy stood up, chuckling as he parked himself in front of Chikita, bouncing on his feet like the strange moppet he was. Holly resisted the urge to twitch in fear at the proximity of Chikita to a youngling, but managed to gulp it down. "Alright string bean, to the outside world. The air in here is too sticky, we need grass and a bit of wind for ambiance." She said, sliding the nearest window open and slinking through it.
"Heh. String bean." Chikita laughed at her own joke, as she often did. She sat down on the spiky bluegrass outside, impeccably short and well-cared for despite the group's lack of a lawnmower. The rest of the semi circle of observers followed the duo out the window, none of them aware that such an act of using unconventional exits was indeed part of Chikita's plan to get their subconscious gears turning. After all, the Backyards rifts themselves were unconventional doorways of sorts, so it was best to plant the seed early.
"This spot should work just fine. Nice and roomy." Chikita stretched out her legs in a circular clearing within the trees. A fairy ring of red mushrooms encircled the area, and ephemeral sunlight cascaded through the hole in the canopy. "Different people have different methods they're inclined toward in reaching the right state of mind to slide into the Backyards. Your mystics and holymen across the world who claimed enlightenment within otherworldly visions could be considered pilgrims into the fringes of that realm, which has only been physically accessible sporadically. Some monks even mummified themselves alive and sealed themselves up inside caves to reach Nirvana, in what they considered an eternal deathless sleep. Granted, we needn't take such extreme measures. One route is to try to clear your mind of preconceived notions of reality, to put aside everything you think you know. It's easier said than done. Simple meditation can take people years to truly master. You aren't so much shutting the world out as unifying with its rhythm. Your own deep breathing and heartbeat become the conduit to the will of your surroundings. The breeze, the soil, every blade of grass - they have a rhythm. When you can feel a drop of dew roll down the grass, you're there."
Cuppy nodded vacantly.
"I see." Cuppy said. "I don't want to do any of that."
Chikita's face fell. "Huh?"
Cuppy smiled and stretched out. "It's a beautiful day for a walk. Why should I close my eyes to find the rhythm? The wind is my compass." he started wandering off, deeper into the forest.
Chikita blinked a few times, sighed, lit her pipe, and regarded the others. "Alright, we'll try it his way. You guys stay here, for the best results, we should go one at a time, lest your imaginations overlap and warp each other."
She was met with suspicious faces, echoing Holly's concern about leaving the boy alone with this deviant.
"Quit looking at me like that!" Chikita barked.
-
"Good to know Cuppy follows directions on the field as loosely as in the classroom." Holly closed her book.
"Just as well that we take turns. I've got to prep the venison. Freyja, give me a hand." Richie said.
Freyja smiled softly. "No."
Richie handed her a cloth bag that was surprisingly heavy. "I figured you'd refuse. So, you can go pawn these off instead. Get a good price for them."
Freyja peeked inside, and she widened her eyes at the sight of knuckle dusters composed of solid silver. "What the?"
Richie smirked. "A souvenir from wherever the hell I got swept into. I think I'll keep the knife, but these guys can get traded in for some dough. Keep it discreet." he saluted her.
Freyja growled at Richie, slung the bag over her shoulder, and headed into town.
"I think I'll stay here." Holly said. "Richie, do you have any more spare scrap from the junkyard?"
"Yeah, quite a bit." Richie said. "Why?"
"I shattered my macuahuitl. If we're on hold, I have nothing better to do than start rebuilding it." Holly said.
"Knock yourself out. Cuppet, you're with me." Richie regarded the uncanny marionette.
As if anticipating kitchen duty, the wooden boy was wearing a chef's hat.
Richie led her around back behind the apartment, where a large duffel bag that may once have been yellow, now pallid off-white like bleached bones, lay full of assorted scraps of various metals. Beside it lie a larger pile of the shinier-looking bits he was able to salvage that were a bit too big for the bag. "I think most of it is ferrous, though there's some of what looks like copper and brass as well, I kinda just grabbed whatever wasn't completely eaten away by rust. There are wood scraps as well." Richie says.
Holly nodded, beginning to sift carefully through the slightly jagged contents of the duffel bag. "Something dense and solid like ebony wood would make a good tough club, though I suppose metal could work, in lieu of any anomalous ebony trees in rural Massachusetts." she muttered, scrubbing away at a weathered tube of brass to polish the tarnish off with an oiled rag. Cuppet seemed more interested in the wood scraps, occasionally holding them up to his rudimentary carved nose and making satisfied clicks. He produced a small knife and got to work on a large hardwood log, oak maybe, trimming it into the rough shape of an adult-size torso, its wooden limbs a blur as it hewed the shape with incredible speed. The puppet held its chin, thinking for a moment before reluctantly putting the knife away and standing idly at Richie's side. "Y'think polished brass and obsidian would be a good looking combo?" Holly asked the open air, unsure if Richie'd left to wherever yet.
"How should I know? It's your maiming implement, you figure it out." Richie grunted, lugging the dead buck to a pulley system to string it up from a tree, leaving it dangling by the legs in prime skinning range. He flipped his knife into place and began making strategic incisions.
"Good talk." Holly rolled her eyes.
"Cuppet, we're going to barbecue this bad boy, go gather a bunch of the charcoal you guys made. Then you can raid the spice cabinet."
Cuppet saluted, then darted off into the apartment.
The wampus cat strolled up to Richie and gruffly meowed at him. Richie obliged their crappy pet and sliced off the stag's tongue. "Merry Christmas." he told the predator, tossing it his cut of the prize.
It scarfed the tongue down, then began gagging a little.
"Chew your food before you swallow!" Holly snapped at the wampus cat.
-
"Here we are." Cuppy crouched down, looking under a mass of unearthed, overgrown tree roots, beneath which was a hollow dirt pit that sank beneath the tree.
"You have a gut feeling about this spot?" Chikita asked the puppeteer.
"Uh huh." Cuppy nodded, then slid down the hole with a "Wheee!" that same moment.
From the sound of the acoustics, the drop was much deeper than should have been possible.
"Well son of a bitch, would you look at that." Chikita blinked, stunned.
A moment later, Cuppy's fishing line shot out and snagged Chikita's sash.
"...oh dear..." Chikita gulped.
Yanked into the hole that was a good bit too small, Chikita was forced into a contortionist backbend, being hauled through the dirt and root-filled pit until exiting the cramped, spine compressing hole and entering freefall. "How the hell is there this much room down he- OOF!" she grunted as she landed on a springy, stiff fabric surface. A trampoline...under a tree?
The wampus cat mewled with gravely satisfaction, horking down the rest of the deer tongue and making a strange pained expression that might've been its attempt at a smile, laying an appreciative paw to rest on Richie's sneaker. He grinned half hardheartedly back at the cat, laughing awkwardly before turning back to the task at hand. "Few more long incisions and, we peel 'er off like the classic tablecloth trick." He muttered, grabbing hold of a flap of skin and giving a sharp tug, the entire hide sliding off below the neck, above which it remained intact for purposes of trophy mounting. The exposure of the deer's raw musculoskeletal structure would've made Cuppy queasy had he been there, but thankfully he and Chikita were off in wonderland. "Planning on using the hide for anything?" Holly said, pinching an end of the freshly removed deerskin that draped over Richie's arm. "If not, it might make a decent handle wrap for the mark 2." She adds, holding up a half-polished hunk of brass which appeared to be forged into roughly macuahuitl shape.
Lowering his brows in confusion, Richie glanced over Holly's shoulder to see she'd built a small, rudimentary, wood-fired blacksmith forge, using a chunk of railroad track steel as an anvil. How he'd somehow missed the clanging of metal indicated how focused he must've been on the skinning process.
-
Chikita was bounced up and off of the trampoline by Cuppy, who landed beside her. The assassin, with a startled cry, faceplanted in a square pit of foam blocks. Digging herself out, she regarded the puppeteer with confusion.
"How did you land after me?" she asked.
"Felt like it." Cuppy shrugged.
"Seems you've got a knack for this." Chikita climbed out, finding the floor was made of colorful squares of harder foam that interlocked together like puzzle pieces. Huge towers of patchwork blocks with the texture of pillows rose high to a domed ceiling painted baby blue and dotted with fluffy white clouds, which drifted like a real sky, along with abstract swirls and patterns that looked fingerpainted onto the atmosphere. The grounds were littered with stuffed animals and toys, and beyond a castle gate-like cardboard facade, a Choo Choo train idled, puffing steam. Across a bridge spanning clear blue waters, the train passed into a station forming the front of a huge jungle gym maze of winding plastic tunnels, platforms, and slides. Slots at the base of a hexagonal foundation of red clay opened wide like the mouths of caves, numbered 1-6. The whirring of arcade cabinets and the clatter of skee balls could be heard echoing inside.
Chikita grimaced. "What the... how old are you?"
Meanwhile...
-
Mason looked up in shock. "What did you say?!" he addressed Locke, an inside agent posing as one of Station Bay's finest, put there to monitor and control reports. He had neglected to make the night shift incident officially known, shrouding the mass vanishing in secrecy. The Checkered Slasher's MO was apparent, thumbprinting every inch of the station. Walls and floors were raked with huge claw marks, and the mingled blood of the officers assigned to Wilcox's team, including Wilcox himself, was splattered up and down the halls. The Chief was also assumed among the casualties. Even so, the incident couldn't be definitively called mass murder, as none of the bodies had ever been recovered. The officers were all to be considered MIA. Flabbergasted at the impossible feat of spiriting away the entire shift, Locke and his security team had only to mop up the scene of the crime and file in the replacements, none the wiser despite unrelenting inquiry. The matter was kept out of Mason's hair as best could be done, while the Institute's main forces were focused on intercepting the foreign bodies and ether fog emissions. Whether the serial killings were the work of an opportunistic human, or another monster had been unclear, seemingly until now.
"A man fitting the killer's description was gunned down in the downtown district, dressed in full gear - a black and white harlequin with elaborate claws, as reported. Suspect seemed delirious, and frantically denied any involvement."
"And his condition?" Mason asked.
"Critical. He's in the hospital under intensive care, but he's not expected to last the night." Locke reported.
This was bad. Mason lit a cigarette and began pacing. "The woman's body they found near where Chelsea was attacked seemed like the slasher's work. But Chelsea herself was unharmed, aside from the fact that she was somehow rendered comatose and drained of vital nutrients. I'd like nothing more than to see her pull through. It would be a huge weight off my chest, and a chance to learn if her assailant was the same man tied to the murders. Damn, I was so focused on the invaders that I completely missed this. And to think the psycho is bedding in the same hospital with Chelsea. If we didn't need him for questioning, I'd pull the plug myself."
Mason glared, grinding his teeth, then composed himself, readjusting his sunglasses.
"No matter. We can use this. Make sure the following story gets slipped into the newspapers - slasher identified as terrorist, using buried bombs to trigger toxic gas pocket eruptions, attacking victims in the night under cover of haze. Traumatized survivors misidentified costumed killer as various monsters. Problem solved."