This is a Shelly side story based off a throw away line from the next chapter. All credit and praise is due to kkscatnip for editing and helping me kick this bitch into shape. I should probably warn for violence, foul language and disturbing themes here.

Side Story: If You Meet the Buddha, Kill the Buddha

If You Meet the Buddha, Kill the Buddha

Shelly's shrink is a bored man in a pristine white button down shirt and khaki pants. There's a fly crawling across his shoulder, but he doesn't seem to notice it. Too fucking bad Shelly can't keep her eyes of the sucker as it crawls and hums. It's so fat and bloated looking, like a mega-godzilla fly. It is the most interesting thing in a very, very beige room.

"You seem distracted, Shelly," the shrink says. His voice is low and droning and he keeps looking over her shoulder at the clock. Sometimes he looks down, but never at her face. She's starting to feel like there's a big red target between her tits and he can't look away. Blaring lights! Neon! The whole works.

The fluorescent lights are buzzing. They're in tune with the fly. Or it is with them.

"Mmm?" she mutters.

"Shelly. You seem distracted. We were talking about your medication. You were telling me what it's for." He smiles, at the clock and then at her tits. The fly is crawling up his collar. It will be on his neck any second now. Any second.

"Yeah. Well, you know," Shelly says. The steel toe of her boots makes a satisfying thunk against the pressed wood of the desk in front of her. "I have bad dreams."

"Yes, so I see." He manages to pull himself from clock and tits to get a look at his notebook. She cranes her neck, but the handwriting is too messy to make much of. Shelly sniffs, she'd fucking slit her wrists if she wrote like that. What an idiot.

"So. Tell me more. Dreams?"

Shelly shrugs. "I don't remember much about my dreams, but they bother my mom. I guess I get loud waking up sometimes." For half a second her eyes blink closed and she sees a monster on the inside of the lids. Awful things, with ears and claws and teeth, like from a horror movie, but worse. They look hungry.

"And how is that working out for you? Your medication," he adds when she gives him a blank look.

"I don't know. My mom stopped complaining so I probably don't have the dreams anymore." The fly touches skin. Touch down! The shrink flinches, just a little and swats at it, but it escapes and settles back on his shoulder. Shelly stifles a grin.

"Well, that's good to hear." He thumbs back through his notebook and nods a few times. "I see that your grades are good. You seem to be doing very well. Why are you- ah. Ah. I see." He looks back up at her tits, with a bland expression he probably thinks is soothing. "Is there anything else you want to talk to me about?"

There isn't really, but Shelly has three guesses about what he's going to talk about and only the first one counts. She was stupid to have ever told her mom a fucking thing.

"Well. Yeah. I have something that works for me better than the meds. To help me sleep. There's a tree, down in the park. You know, on the west side. I go there to do my homework." She feels like an idiot talking about it and she kicks at the desk again, and then winces.

Shelly found the tree a year ago, when she was twelve. One particular willow tree. It had long drooping branches that went all the way to the ground on every side and parted like a curtain as if just for her. Hidden inside it was always cool and dim and quiet, as if the leaves and branches were much thicker than they looked and blocked the outside world completely. As if even the noise of Central Park couldn't break through this particular sanctuary. She doesn't tell the shrink any of that, but she'd been dumb enough to tell her mother that one time, so she's stuck admitting to it now.

"Homework?" Now the shrink is droning in time with the fly. It's gotten near the tip of his collar again. "And how do you like your homework? Not too hard, I hope." He gives her tits a stupid, gooey smile. Shelly resists the urge to tell him that he won't be getting an introduction. Pervert.

Shelly loves her homework. Even if it is boring and pathetic and intended for lowest common denominator idiots. She loves the neat, white corners of paper and the scrawl of the pen across the page. She loves watching the black ink spread on white sheets. The best are math and history, because they're the same thing to her, all about building giant towers of words and numbers and watching them rise into the real world as if they were living things.

"Yeah, not too hard. Homework is very soothing. I like numbers."

"Yes, yes, I see. That's very nice. Now, why don't you talk about how you feel about this tree?"

Shelly rolls her eyes and then almost kicks herself when she seems him write that down. Fuck. She doesn't need anything else about her in that notebook she just needs away from this asshole.

"It's a nice tree. I always felt like it was almost... mine. No one else goes there," she says. The fly touches down on skin again and the shrink swats it. This time it goes under the collar and the shrink makes the most idiotic face she's ever seen. She stifles a giggle.

Shelly shuts her eyes for a moment and imagines the tree and being under it, because it's way the fuck better than being here. That closed, dark, cool world, were everything is just different. She'd been there yesterday.

Yesterday, under her tree, when Shelly finished her homework she could lay down with her head pillowed on her jacket and stare up past the tiny cracks of leaves into the blue. She did that a lot, she would just watch, not thinking of anything in particular, and sometimes she'd fall asleep like that. Sleeping under the willow tree with her homework tucked under her arm and the sky spread out and hidden away all at once was the only way to guarantee no nightmares. It worked better than the pills the shrinks had given her to keep her from waking up screaming. They only prevented the screaming, they only made it so Shelly forgot the nightmares. (and fuck, the teeth and those red flashing eyes and she thinks... fuck, it wants to eat her...) But Shelly's tree worked every time and that was exactly why Shelly made sure she didn't fall sleep there more than once a week, precisely. Shelly refused to admit to a dependency, even on that.

"Yes, that's very interesting," the shrinks says, in the same flat tone of voice, bringing her back to the real world too abruptly. She gives him another glare. He's starting to look really fucking uncomfortable and Shelly hopes the fly is really making him feel it under the collar. "So, you believe that there is a tree in central park that belongs completely to you and no one else can go near it. Very, very interesting."

That's not what she said at all, but Shelly doesn't argue, because this visit can't possibly go on much longer. She wishes she could take a look at the clock too see how much longer but the shrink is starting to look happier whenever his eyes drop from the clock to tits, so soon. She kicks the desk one more time, just to emphasize the depths of her irritation with this asshole and his stupid questions.

Shelly never has questioned that it was her tree, right there in the middle of Manhattan. No one else ever used it, not the brats and their nannies or mommies, not the dealers or the freaks or the assholes Shelly's age. Just her, in all of New York.

"Well, I'm sure I'll get the chance to hear all about your tree on our next visit, Shelly, but I'm afraid we've just out of time for now." The fake sympathy is back in spades. Thick enough to taste, like cigarette smoke. Shelly nods and hops to her feet.

She already knows there won't be a next visit. Not with this loser. She hopes he never gets that fly out from under his collar and that it buzzes after him forever.

Shelly never doubted the tree belonged to her and no bored monotone man in bad clothes knew the words to change her mind. So she was understandably pissed off when she slid through the branches on a particularly bright and sunny Friday and found some bald guy dressed in an orange robe like a Buddhist monk humming and meditating under her tree.

The surrealism of the moment killed her. Like walking home from school and finding out you were in the Neverending Story all of the sudden. Shit. There were monks in Shelly's attic.

Shit.

Her first thought was just, fuck it, what's the point? It's easy enough to find a non-monk infested place to do algebra in a city like New York.

But, no. This was her tree, he could get his own. Too much time had slipped away in the psychiatrists' office defending her right to this tree for her to give it up because arguing felt surreal. Of all the bloody things.

No one knew about the tree, but Shelly, her mom and her gaggle of shrinks. No one but this meditating monk. Meditating out of place monk, in the middle of grass and green in the middle of concrete and steel. Meditating monks belonged in Tibet or Shangri-La not in Central Park.

Here they stood, in the real world, and here was a Buddhist monk meditating under her tree. The tree no one but Shelly was supposed to know about. If her tree could be infested with Buddhists, who else could wander in next? It felt like some spell cracked under his fingers when he found it and stepped through the branches. It made Shelly clear her throat and glare at the monk. He looked up with the most benign gaze there ever was outside of a doctor's office. Shelly gave him the sort of tightlipped, narrow smile that made her teachers flinch when she raised her hand.

"Excuse me, but this is my spot and I want you to leave."

Seventy pounds of pissed off Manhattan born and bred teenager demanding you leave now might effect a lot of guys badly. It figured that Shelly would get Mr. Genuine Monk Man, who just blinked and smiled at her serenely, like he was about to tell her to have a nice day.

"Ah, yes, there you are," he said, as if he welcoming her into his home for tea. "I humbly greet you, great master."

Shelly paused in the act of telling him why it was he had to leave and right now in order to glare. She got crazies and junkies screaming that the world was ending unless she could spare some beer money on her way to and from school every day. Enough to know crazy when she saw it. At least Monk Man kept it to staring instead of screaming and chasing like the psycho he was. Crazy or high.

"Oh, you're a junkie. Well, if you don't get lost I'll get a cop to get rid of you."

Baldy just smiled again, pushed his hands together, and bowed, like someone freshly hatched from a freak show or a fantasy novel. "I know this is a confusing thing to hear, but surely your dreams have made you suspect this. You are the current incarnation of a great master. I have come to meet you."

Listening to baldy the monk almost amused Shelly, like watching flies climb shrinks or fucking idiots act like fucking idiots. Until he said that. About dreams.

The urge to scream and throw things came on strong and sudden. Her dreams. Her mind curdling, sick making behemoth dreams of blood and sickness and monsters in the dark. Her dreams about being eaten alive, slowly, starting with her hands. Not that Shelly ever remembered her dreams. This smiling fuck invading her space knew nothing about her dreams.

"Yeah. Sure," she growled. "What the hell are you anyway? You sound like one of those assholes my mother overpays to give palm readings. And if you think I have money to overpay you, you are more wrong then you could possibly imagine."

No emotion but calm touched the monk's face. "You misunderstand, Master. Let me explain."

Shelly's teeth made the sort of grinding noise that her mother likes to tell her means she'll need them capped before she hits twenty. She shuddered and closed her eyes at the image, remembering monsters with teeth like nails that no caps could ever fix and blood. Teeth and red fucking eyes and -crack. A cracking branch somewhere pulled her back into the real world and she blinked. A man in orange still sat Indian style under her tree. Fuck, for a moment she'd had hope he might vanish with the rest of the delusion.

"If I'm your great master, I order you to fuck off now, please. Thank you."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Master," he said and bowed his head apologetically. "Your powers are great, it was very difficult for me to even find this place." The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled and she decided he looked like Mr. Miyagi dressed in orange. This guy was a character from a bad inspirational kung fu movie. A Kung Fu movie was staging an invasion of Shelly's life.

Shelly put up with a lot. School idiots, drugs, shrinks. Dreams. Kung Fu movies qualified as more than a lot. Kung Fu movies went beyond any reasonable expectation. There was absolutely no requirement that she stay and endure this shit.

"Fine. I'll fuck off, then. And I mean it about getting a cop so you had damn well better not be here when I get back."

Her next step was in the direction of a patrol car, but the thought of explaining Miyagi and his invasion of her tree sounded like grounds for another round of shrink visits to her. Instead Shelly walked home, kicking over random trash cans on her way. Miyagi-man had better not follow her. She kept looking over her shoulder to be sure no orange robes fluttered in the corner of her eyes.

Every time she looked back she knew that this time he would be there, smiling like an idiot. But every time she saw empty space. Getting home seemed to take forever, as though the blocks had gotten longer and wider in the last few hours. By the time she got to her front door she gave into the urge to kick the stairs with every step up. Her mom came home late on Fridays so it was all right. Even so, Shelly locked both locks on her bedroom door before she started screaming.

Shelly screamed herself hoarse. She drove both fists into the perfect eggshell blue wall over and over until spots of red splattered on it, like a pen had exploded. In the end her knuckles hurt and her throat ached, in a dull, deadly way that just seemed to go on and on while an asshole still had her tree and there was nothing she could do about it. The futility gagged her and she just wanted it to stop so she covered her head with a pillow and fell sleep.

It felt like she had just closed her eyes to sleep when she opened them again and sat bolt upright in her bed. The fact the clock on the nightstand blinked one thirty AM was the only sign time had passed. Shelly's throat was still too messed up to let her make noise beyond a whisper and cold sweat ran down her spine from a nightmare about a monk who loved her so much he turned into a monster in a huge fucked up house in the mountains. And she, Shelly Ingridson, had run away from some monk creep and let him have her tree.

"No way, you old hag," she whispered into her hands. She didn't know how those hands had come to cover her face, but now they were frantically trying to scrub moisture of damp cheeks. Her hands, but they felt disconnected from her wrists, like something else controlled them. Her cheeks, but they felt like they'd never belonged to her. The body she'd worn her entire life, and it was wrong, wrong and not hers.

"Just. No way."

Something shoved her body out of her tangled sheets, kicking and pushing the thick fabric to the floor, but it wasn't her. Shelly's bare feet brushed against the floor before they felt firm and steady in the act of standing.

The ratty jeans she had to hide to keep her mom or the cleaning lady from tossing them got tugged out from under the mattress and pulled on, along with an even rattier t-shirt. The switchblade, cool and comfortable, a present from her dad, fit perfectly into her jeans pocket. Dressed and ready, she tiptoed down the hall. It was early/late enough that there was no question of her mom being home and asleep. No lights on, though, so either she hadn't screamed loud enough to wake her mom, or, more likely, there was valium involved somehow.

The hilt of the switchblade felt reassuring in her hands, definitely her hand now and no one else's, as she slid out the door and into the night, and fuck danger and criminals. Nothing like that bothered her when she had something important at stake. Shelly had a mission.

Outside, past the alarms and the doorman, the streets were as close to empty as they got. Just some college kids, the occasional car whizzing by and a few gang assholes screaming cat calls in her direction broke the darkness. None of them came too close, so Shelly ignored them, the pedophile fucks.

It seemed like she walked forever, eyes straight ahead, fingertips stroking her knife. There were sirens wailing from two directions, and she could see flashing lights out of the corner of her right eye. A few blocks from the park some guy in camo who stank of vodka jumped out from behind a dumpster and screamed something about wogs. She ran until her chest ached and he chased her almost to the gates of the park before he gave up and melted back into the night.

And then she found her tree, under a solid yellow street light blazing from the path. Shelly's hands shook as she climbed inside, through the veil of branches. She took a few more shaky steps before letting her forehead press up against the smooth bark and her arms slide around the trunk.

It was still the same tree. Her tree and there were no monks and no nightmares and nothing was here but Shelly. Her shrink was wrong, her mom was fucked in the head and Shelly felt completely sane. Totally sane, for a person who'd just run into Central Park in the middle of the night to find a tree that someone else had dared to touch.

Even with her cheek against the bark Shelly could hear sirens echoing even through the branches. Sirens and someone's drunken laughter and further off, but not too far, someone screaming. Shelly squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the tree to do it's magic, to block out the world outside, and the nightmares and everything. She waited for the noise to stop like it always had. It didn't. The drunken laughter got louder, closer.

This is the same tree, the right tree, but someone else has been here and now Shelly felt the ache of worry. She never understood how the tree worked, but it only worked for her. Not other people. And the laughter was so close, like it was laughing in her ear. The branches rustle and Shelly head the sound of a person stepping inside, another fucker violating her tree. Of course the monk would come back after ruining the tree. Asshole. Shelly doesn't doubt the sound is him, the only other person she's seen here, because Shelly's life was turning into a Kung Fu movie and that kind of thing just happened in Kung Fu movies. As soon she was ready to turn around she would definitely kick the monk's ass.

Shelly's thoughts stopped and rotated backwards when the stranger under the tree spoke. In a Kung Fu movie it could only have been the monk. It wasn't.

"Hey, little girl," a voice, not the monk's, called. Low and cracked and not quite sane sounding. Shelly drew in a tight, harsh breath slid the knife in her pocket, keeping it low and hidden as she flipped it open. "It's pretty crazy to come out here all by yourself at this time of night."

Shelly bit the inside of her cheek and turned around, as centimeter by centimeter, drawing the motion out. Drunken laughter resonated through the dim, partially enclosed space. Shelly narrowed her eyes, trying to see in the dark. It's a guy, of course, that much is clear. His eyes looked like empty sockets of black in the sulfurous yellow street light. Empty eyes, like a demon monster from the dreams Shelly never remembers. Liquor fumes and cigarettes are almost thick enough to taste in the dark.

"What are you doing, pretty girl?" he mumbled and took a step forward. He stunk to the tree tops, but he didn't move like a drunk. Shelly's seen enough to know what a moving drunk looks like. The man looms very big and the tree trunk is pressed solidly against her back. "You looking for something?"

"Not you," Shelly said, in her iciest fuck off voice. It worked on teachers and assholes who try to sit with her at lunch, but here... here she pressed her fingertips against the tip of her knife for the assurance of it and feels warm, fluid drip down her hand. It doesn't hurt.

"A girl like you wouldn't be here unless she wanted something," he said and he was getting close now, close. Shelly could almost feel his breath and the fabric of his coat against her skin. "You'd be stupid otherwise. You stupid, girly?"

"Get away from me. I'm warning you," Shelly said and the hand in her pocket shook, but nothing else did.

"Little girl warning me." He's laughing, gasping with it. Shelly's eyes narrowed further and even her bleeding fingers went steady on the hilt of her knife. She stood petrified and trapped and fearless all at once. The man was very close now, his face pressed up against hers so that the stench of his breath was all she could feel. The touch of his mouth, rough and miserable. Shelly stood completely still and her breathing was slow and even. In and out. In and out.

"Are you a virgin, little girl?" More bright red laughter bubbles out of him and the stench of his lungs is enough to make Shelly gag. "Do you want to be?"

"You have such pretty golden hair."

So close. So close. His lips pursed and drew even closer, and then they were there, brushing hers and, yes, now. Shelly drove the knife into his neck with one harsh, shoving motion. He never screamed. Blood and blood and blood pumped from his throat in thick, wet spurts, splattering on Shelly's face and neck but he never screamed. Neither did she.

"No," Shelly said, very softly, when the blood finally stopped. Probably none left in him, now it all dripped off of her. "I'm not a virgin."

The tree was against her back but not her tree anymore. Someone else has been here. She ought to have known it wouldn't be her tree after something like that. It was so stupid to come here and she fucking hated that she was stupid. Her hands shook, from fingertips to wrists.

Shelly thought about calling the police, but she didn't. Let them do their jobs and come to her. If they asked she decided to tell them, but now she needed to go home. So she walked, slowly, like someone in a dream. No one seemed to notice her or if they did she'd didn't notice them. She took a long, hot shower and went to bed. She overslept and if she dreamed, she didn't remember it.

Over breakfast her mom pointed out trivia in the morning paper. "Oh, look, Shelly, they found a body right near our section of the park last night! Isn't that where your tree is?"

Shelly shrugged and finished the dregs of her orange juice. She tugged the paper over and stared at the black and white splotchy pictures of a man with his throat cut. It was on page six. "I guess."

"Well, I just thought it was interesting. So many crazies out there these days, honey. I hope you're careful," her mom said and turned her attention back to coffee and the style section. Later that day her mom was so happy when Shelly threw away the old jeans completely of her own volition she let Shelly spend more then one hundred dollars at the bookstore.

It was Monday morning, early, when the brick walls and wrought iron gates of Shelly's school came into view, that she saw orange robe was waiting for her outside the gate. Shelly thought about turning around or going in the back way, but fuck it. She kept walking. He smiled serenely as she approached and bowed very low, as if waiting for her to bow back.

"Good morning, Great Master," he said. "You made me search for you again." Shelly stared at him, with very blue, bloodshot eyes. He still looked like Mr. Miyagi to her, and he never stopped smiling. Like he was so happy to see her.

She wondered what he knew about the tree and the dark and the man and how he could smile like that if he knew. If Great Buddhist Masters could be reincarnated as thirteen year old murders the world was clearly fucked beyond all redeeming.

"If I ever see you again," she said in a low, blank voice. "I will get my mother's gun, find you, and fucking blow your brains out."

His smile faltered, just for a moment and something like confusion rippled through his black eyes. Shelly wondered what he really expected his Great Master to be like and how he could be stupid enough to think that person might look like her.

"You think I'm kidding, right?" she said, and took a quick step forward. He looked away, opened his mouth as if to say something. Shelly's palm cracked over his face, hard enough that the impact surprised her. Her palm hurt, but it was a good, even pain. Not like the way her skin itched where she'd rubbed it raw in the shower or the way her knuckles ached from pounding the wall.

"Shut up. I don't care. You just shut up. Stay away from me."

"But... but... master."

Shelly didn't listen, couldn't listen to another word. She turned and walked away, straight backed, eyes facing forward. If he followed her home, she didn't know about.

"So, Shelly, why don't we talk about why you're here?" This shrink is a woman, with crooked yellow teeth and glasses on a chain. Shelly looks her right in the eye and smiles at the tiny flinch.

"I don't know. I think I've been doing pretty well," Shelly says, and presses her palms against the shrink's desk as she leans forward. Her smile widens. She likes it when they flinch.

"Well, your grades are certainly very good," the shrink mumbles as she toys with the paper in front of her. The shrink's eyes keep dropping away from Shelly's gaze every time they meet. "That's wonderful, dear. But your teachers are a little concerned about your attendance."

"I go to school," Shelly says coolly. "I'm meeting the regents board's requirements."

"Yes, yes, I can see that's true. But, you're such a bright girl, Shelly. Such a pretty girl. We all just want to be sure you have the future you deserve." This shrink's voice is earnest and pitch perfect. Shelly wonders if she practiced the speech in the mirror before the session.

"I don't understand the problem. I'm doing fine."

"Yes, dear, but your nightmares-"

"The meds you guys have me on take care of those. I haven't had a nightmare in years," Shelly says. She flushed them all down the toilet. These days she sleeps with her mouth pressed against her pillow to muffle the screams before they get out. Maybe one day she'll asphyxiate. Maybe that beats the alternative.

"Mmm... yes, I see. No problems with the dosage?"

"It's fine."

"Well, we can adjust the dosage if you need to. Now, then," the shrink says as she flips through her file. "I understand that there was something about a tree?"

Shelly shrugs and looks straight ahead into eyes that won't meet hers. "Eh. That was just a kid thing my mom took way too seriously. I don't go to the park much anymore, anyway. Too busy with school." The last time she'd gone, the tree's trunk was covered in carvings and graffiti and someone had hacked away half the branches.

The shrink's fingers twitch nervously. "Ah. Yes, well that's good. That school keeps you busy. Have you ever considered becoming involved in extracurricular activities, dear? Really, you are such a bright girl."

These days Shelly shows all her teeth when she smiles and everyone flinches. Someone is dead because of her and maybe it shows in her eyes. Maybe they should flinch. Maybe Shelly is exactly what she is supposed to be.