Ross ends up back at the park. He takes out a pair of gloves and starts examining stuff. There's some tall grass in the distance that appears to have something moving through it. Ross grabs a metal pipe from his bag, about three feet long, and slowly walks towards the movement. Which he thinks may be one of the 73 feral hogs he’s been hearing so much about. Or… those things from last night. Either way, he doesn’t know for sure.
Upon closer inspection of the grass, the movement seems to stop.
“Hey sword guy— uh, Oleander, is that you?”
Silence. No movement either. Just the breeze.
“I know they say never to poke it with a stick, but… I’m gonna poke it with a stick.” Ross pokes the grass. There's nothing there. “Yeah I thought so.” They go to another area, where there’s some ferns and rocks. They crouch down and inspect, then move back to the center to take a wider look at the clearing. Nothing really seems off about the clearing, aside from the staircase, which the very top of it is visible from the treeline. Ross heads in that direction. The staircase is still there, the blood that was spilled last night also still there. The staircase feels weird to be around, almost disorienting.
Ross takes a mason jar out of his bag and looks for any blood that may have been left by the monsters. He wants to test it at home for any recognizable species.
There's a strange grey substance that looks almost identical in consistency to the human blood! He scoops some into the jar, careful not to get any on himself, and seals the lid. Then, Ross walks around the stairs but not up them.
“This is some freaky shit,” he mutters. The closer he gets, the more disorienting the feeling is. Ross takes a pinecone and hurls it as far as he can up the stairs.
It lands on one of the steps, but it seems to sink into the staircase. Ross takes out his phone and attempts to photograph this phenomenon. It comes out weird, grainy. The sky is blue... why's it appearing white in the photo..?
Ross looks at the photograph. Then he points the phone straight up to take a picture of the sky to compare. It comes out normal, blue. Ross decides to go further down the trail, in search of Oleander and/or his dwelling. It's just more woods, nothing very special. There's the occasional symbol carved into a tree, but really nothing. Just a bunch of operator symbols, other slenderverse symbols. Dumbass kids cutting up trees for their webseries with bad motion tracking and speaker-breaking noises.
Ross decides that this place has offered up all its clues and goes back to the motorcycle. They drive back to ocean bay and then head into the bayou to get to their shack.
Ross brings everything inside, puts the groceries and the backpack of supplies down, and grabs the jar of blood and their phone. They then proceed into their bunker/lab (which is really just Stacey’s old bedroom with all her stuff moved out). Ross does all sorts of tests on the blood. They use pH strips, a centrifuge, etc. The last test they do is to take a little bit of blood in an eye dropper and blots it on a leaf before taking the rest of the blood and putting it in a… dna… tester… thingy that he convinced his friend Craig who works in a wildlife center to buy for him. He lets the blood sit while results come in.
While waiting, they make themselves a martini and sit down. Stacey knocks on the door.
"It's your week with the kids," she says, not even bothering to wait for Ross to come to the door. She then drops off the kids and fuckin leaves. The kids are like, two, so Ross has hidden the weed plants in his room and locked the bunker.
---
Timothy gets out of his car and then looks around. Seems normal for now. Timothy looks for suspicious things for a second. Then he goes back to his car and puts on a backpack.
"Ah.. this should be good." He smirks and walks down the path and back to the clearing. There's rustling in some of the grass. "What the hell..." Timothy looks around and brings out a bat. He jabs at the grass. There's a shriek, and something runs out of the grass. Timothy can only see a whitish flash before it vanishes into the woods.
"What the hell?" He walks more into the forest. In the distance, he can see something pale and skinny crouched over something. It smells like rotting. Timothy is in shock. He readies his bat in case it sees him. Timothy could maybe notice that it's eating something. A decaying carcass of something unrecognizable due to the damage done to it by the monster. He brings out a camera from his backpack and photographs it. He zooms and it looks like it's eating something.
The monster turns around at the sound of the camera. It stands up with jerky, unnatural movements, still maintaining the hunched-over look. There's several cuts and scars on its body, the scar tissue that covers the majority of its looking extremely hard. Timothy can see its bones beneath its skin, and its torso looks as though it's barren of organs.
The worst part? Its face. The monster's face looks nearly human. Its eyes are deeply sunken in, no actually visible eyeball, just dark. Its mouth, the gums are completely exposed, no skin for the lips, it's all just gums. The teeth? Sharp, serrated, long. Many sets of them as well. It doesn't have a nose, just two holes. Its face and neck are drenched in blood from the thing it was eating.
It opens its mouth to speak, and its voice sounds... wrong. Distorted. It echos.
"Timothy."
Timothy runs back, making sure he brings his bat and takes pictures.
“OH FUUUUUCK” Fog begins to grow around the trees, making it nearly impossible to navigate as the Rake picks up speed on Timothy. It makes strange, animalistic screeches as it runs after him, catching up quickly.
“AAAAH” Timothy runs faster and waves his bat at the creature. “SOMEONE, ANYONE?!?! OH SHIIIIT”
This does Nothing to it. It catches up to Timothy, throwing him to the ground by the neck, creating a large gash. It pins Timothy to the ground, kneeling over him. It growls lowly as it stares into Timothy's eyes, and he can sense one emotion from the monster. Pure, unbridled joy. It finds happiness in what it's doing. This monster isn't killing him for food, it doesn't need Timothy in order to survive. It's doing this for fun.
It lunges down at Timothy, piercing the skin on his head with its teeth, and beginning to tear. It bites down harder, piercing the skull, and tearing Timothy's head from its body. It takes the head in its hands, biting the chunk of skull off, leaving a large hole. The Rake throws Timothy's head into the woods, going back to his body, and tearing open his torso. It begins to eat at his organs.
Once the Rake has finished eating Timothy, it takes the headless corpse and drags it away.
The fog recedes.
---
Willow looks around, having arrived at the park. "Is this.. the right place..? Seems so..? Jeez. And Tim's in there alone. Uggh. Uuuugg. Why am I doing this." She waits for a moment, before freezing, hearing rapid footsteps.
"That better be Tim." She begins walking towards the table area, though slow and aware. She sees the fog and walks back out of the forest, once again standing in the beginning. "Eugh. Nope. Can't do this. Ill.I'll.. just wait here. I'm sure he'll be fine..?"
Willow beging pacing nervously. Myla pulls up and parks their car. ...was their A/C on this entire time? Fucking waste of R-12...
Ayden pulls up and parks his moped before hopping off of it. “Oh hey!”
Myla gets out of their car. "What's up. Also, Willow...?"
"Uhhhh" Willow stammers, "OK so I definitely didn't come here on purpose bit also I think I might've heard Tim screaming but Maybe it wasn't tim and it's actually okay-"
“So, ya ready to go explore? Because I brought a crossbow instead of the BB gun, more effective against bears-“ Ayden says.
Fuck. Why did Tim come here. Shit.
"Uhm... How'd you know it was Tim?" Myla asks.
"I'm not sure. I'm scared. I want to help. Please." Willow says.
"Maybe it was just a homeless person...?" Myla says.
"It sounded like him. And I know he's here-" Willow replies.
“Well, We should probably go see whoever it is is okay,” Ayden says. Mylas brain is running at 500. They grab some mushroom tea and drink it.
"Right. Right? Right. I have a knife???" Willow seems like she's panicking.
“And I have a crossbow! Could- would- should be better than a BB gun.” Ayden says.
Myla stares towards the path. And starts walking, carefully. Ayden starts following Myla.
"Myla, wait- guys- ugh.. no-" Willow continues to pace.
---
Myla enters the area. Holy shit. The blood.
Ayden takes out his camcorder and starts recording. “This isn’t good.”
Myla notices a small trail of blood going into the woods, and decides to check it out. Fucking hell. It's his head. "I..."
Ayden follows Myla and upon seeing it, pukes up his lunch. Myla runs back to the entrance. They don't want to be next, they know better.
“Oh god oh fuck,” Ayden starts to panic. He is in shock at this. He is experiencing the Freeze part of Fight or Flight. The head has a HUGE chunk taken out of it. After a while, he fucking screams and bolts towards the opposite direction.
---
Myla runs up to Willow. They're clearly distraught. Willow's never seem them like this.
"...Myla? What happened- myla? Are you ok- tim-..?" Willow runs up to Myla.
"I... The... No..."
"Hold on. Where's Ayden?.." Willow asks, "AYDEN! AYDEN GET OUT! CMON!"
"We need to go." Myla says.
"But Ayden- we can't leave him!" Willow says.
"He can handle himself. Please."
"So could Tim!"
Myla looks at Willow, face-to-face. "TIM IS FUCKING DEAD." Willow pauses, face flushing. Myla grabs their mushroom tea, spilling it a little, but drinking ALL of it.
"..no" Willow stammers.
Myla pulls their phone out and calls the police. "Uhm, hi... I'm at Bonita Lakes and, uhm, I found someones head... It looks like something ate it, too..."
Willow holds Mylas hand tight, almost too tight. The call seems just... so fucking wild. They never expected this. Holy shit.
"..he's really dead..?"
Myla looks at Willow. "Yeah... uhm... fuck- I never really liked the guy but... fucking hell-"
"But I did. We were friends! We talked! He was.. so.. lonely."
Myla is frozen. They head to their car.
"He was so.. nobody deserves.." Willow stares into the forest. Myla is just looking at Willow. No. They can't lose her. No. No. No. No.
Willow hears the quiet sound of Aydens distant scream, "..no, oh no, no, not again.."
Ayden fucking runs towards them. “THAT IS NOT A PROP HOLY FUCKK”
Holy shit. He's ok. Thank fucking god.
"AYDEN!!!" Willow yells.
"WILLOW, HOP IN! AYDEN! FUCKING GO!" Myla yells in response.
"OH my God you're both ok.." Willow, out of panic, does exactly that, literally bolting into the car. Myla doesn't hesitate for a single fucking second. They zoom out of there. Fuck that place.
Ayden runs to his moped and hops onto it, putting pedal to the metal and zooming out of there.
---
"..hey Myla..?"
"Y-Yeah?"
"I think somethings wrong with me. Im... I miss Tim, and I'm so scared.. but there's something in me.. that's excited.. and still curious. And.. eugh.." Willow says, "Can you pull over a second.. I need to throw up.."
Myla stops the car. Willow runs out, throwing up.
"I'm sorry. Thanks." Willow gets back in, "...what the hell is.. actually happening here.."
Cops have secured the scene. Park is closed.
---
The kids are in bed. Every time Ross has the kids over he’s afraid something will happen to them. That’s why he keeps the gators well fed. His shack is not in the safest location, being in the bayou. But after the events of the last few days, Ross is very concerned. He decides to focus on his work to get his mind off of things. The blood results should be ready by now. He makes himself a cup of oolong tea and goes to his bunker. Ross analyzes the blood report.
It seems similar to human blood, but at the ssme time very different. Ross is thoroughly confused. This shouldn’t be possible, and yet it is. He checks the leaf that he dropped some blood on. He continues this all night, until the next morning. Gavin knocks softly on the bunker door.
“Come in, kiddo. Don’t touch anything.”
Gavin enters. "Zaza, I want breakfast.”
Ross turns to gavin, revealing the dark circles under his eyes. He hasn’t slept, “Zaza’s a little busy Gavin. Give me a sec.”
”Zaza, I’m hungry.”
Ross gets up slowly and walks to the kitchen to make breakfast for Gavin and Leila. "Is Leila up yet?”
Gavin nods.
“Where is she?”
”Playing outside in the mud.”
Sudden dread fills Ross
“Stay right here Gavarino. U’ll make breakfast in a second.” They go outside and— Leila is right there, just making mud cake. Ross lets out a sigh of relief, “Come on Leila, let’s get you inside for breakfast.”
Leila giggles. “Zaza, I’m already making breakfast!”
“That’s adorable Lei-Lei but mud isn’t breakfast. And breakfast is family time.”
Leila begins gibbering in that language some twins make up to speak to each other. She usually only uses it with gavin and it’s usually pretty endearing but right now she’s looking into the bayou. Nobody is there.
Ross is beginning to get creeped out. “Okay Leila! Enough outdoor time! Let’s go eat some waffles.” he scoops her up and goes straight indoors. All of the locks were unlocked on Ross’s door. None of them are low enough for a child to reach.
Ross makes waffles.
After breakfast, Ross heads over to Carl's house with his kids. Carl recently joined the Deity In Death LARP Discord Server, and wanted to talk to Ross about some of the stuff happening, but when Ross got to Carl's house, it was trashed and Carl wasn't home. Ross soon heads back to the shack.
The shack door is WIDE open. Ross grabs his kids and runs inside. Nothing is there. everything exactly as they left it. soggy waffles and everything. just the door. Ross is panicking a bit but he eventually convinces himself it's nothing. Probably some kids with a lock picking set playing a prank on him. He puts his kids in their rooms and tells them to go to bed.
He makes a point to lock the door and is just about to get something to eat when he notices something on the table.
It's a drawing. Gavin must have made it while Ross was outside getting Leila this morning.
Ross drunkenly messages the discord because he doesn't want to believe that yet ANOTHER monster is real, much less sneakin around his shack all sneaky-like. Then as an afterthought he drunk-calls his ex-wife.
"Ross, this better be fucking important and there better be nothing wrong with the kids."
"Stacey you fuckin turtle what nonsense is you putting in our kidzez head?" Ross is slurring their words together and honestly doesn't know that they just called their ex-wife a turtle, "Leila was talking to an invisible friend but I don fink issa fuckin indivisible fred, on god Stacey, an den Gavin drawed a fuckin drawin of a fuckin... of our famify but you're side-a-ways and angy an' there's a mosster named chickeng foot there. but like you's not dead just sideways and angy, Stacey Stacey Stacey Stacey you better nod be tryink t' scare me so you get custody Stacey I stg"
Stacey is quiet for like three minutes, then says, "did you just say you 'stg' instead of 'swear to god? My god Ross you're a real fuckin bastard. And what kind of bullshit are you talking about? Is the 'sideways' drawing some kind of threat? And who the fuck cares if a fucking TWO YEAR OLD has an INVISIBLE FUCKING FRIEND? You're drunk, Ross. Maybe I should look into full custody."
She hangs up and blocks Ross's number. And his landline. And his six burner phones he uses to deal pot. And his uncle's phone number, just in case. Ross just hangs up the phone, slides down the wall, and puts their head in their hands, and begins to cry.
After an hour or so, Ross gets up, smokes a blunt, and calls someone he only calls when very, very desperate: the babysitter.
AKA his uncle.
He tells his uncle that he'll drop off the kids for a bit, and to not let them talk to or about any monsters. His uncle, who is like 70, understands.
Still sad, Ross wakes up his kids and tells them that they're going on a sleepover with their cool old uncle.
Then he puts them in the sidecar, which he didn't get around to detaching, and drives to his uncle's house. As they're leaving, Ross doesn't notice cause his eyes are on the road, but Gavin waves at the bayou. After Ross has dropped off the kids, he decides he needs help. He drives a bit to a pullover in the road and messages the discord. He's still drunk but the THC from his blunt has kicked in so he's calmer now, more capable of typing.