Xander
POV
Back
to Sunnydale, I almost don’t see the sign, since some joker has run it
over. I pull into town an hour ahead of
the sun. The sky is already lightening,
and I can hear Cordelia stirring in the back.
Damn, she’s an early riser.
Willow took a lot longer. Maybe
there’s a system or something…
I
pull over in town, as her thumping around is getting pretty violent. She kicks and screams and thrashes her way
out of the carpet I left her rolled up in and practically rolls out of the back
of the SUV to land on the street. She
looks like shit, hair all mussed, makeup rubbed and smeared, clothes, mmm,
clothes interestingly all rumpled.
“Don’t
touch me!” she shouts, and I remember that this is Cordelia. She doesn’t want my help. Wouldn’t ask for it if she was on fire. “I can’t believe you did this!” she looks
down at herself, “God! I can’t believe
this! What a nightmare!” she tugs at
her skirt, pulling it down. Darn. Seems a waste to cover those legs. I was enjoying the view.
She
looks around, slowly, then strides purposefully off down the street. “Um, Cordelia?” I rush up and grab her arm and she just glares at me until I move
my hand. My hand feels bad, like it
needs to hide. How does she do
that? “I said don’t touch me. Just because you don’t have a body
temperature anymore, don’t even
think you’ll ever be cool.” And she’s
off again. Dayum. Dead for five minutes and she already has a
put-down ready. I thought she had a
book somewhere, or a list, but this had to be off the cuff, there is just no
way she could have had this one prepared.
“Where the hell are you going?” I ask, not feeling the need to get any
closer. She doesn’t even turn around,
just waves one of her hands dismissively behind her, as if dismissing him, “To
change. Like I’m gonna be caught dead in this outfit…” She reaches out and swings around the corner
likes she’s on rails, not even slowing down.
Girl can make an exit.
I
should have known. I feel an urge to
take off my glasses and polish them. Of
course I don’t have glasses, so I find something to do with my hand involving
the zipper of my coat.
Almost
sunrise. So tired, and the arm is
freaking killing me. Time to get back
to Buffy’s, I guess.
Snyder
POV
They’re
all fools.
No
one knows, no one understands. No one
but me.
I
haven’t even unpacked yet, here to replace that peacenik who got himself eaten
alive, literally, by these students, these animals.
But
already the town is in chaos. No
discipline, no rules, no one with the common sense to stand up to these
people. The Mayor gave me the heads-up,
told me the score, about the Hellmouth, about the blood-crazed freaks, about
what is expected of me. I have to stand
the line, be firm, to keep them in their place. To remind them that there will always be rules.
So
I walk the streets in the early morning, just before dawn, when I know I have
only the stragglers, the weak, the foolish to confront, and I pick them
off. Desert Eagle to slow them down. A stake through the heart to finish them
off. I’ve killed two already and it is
only the second day. I will take this
town back, alone if I have to.
I
see him, another of them, standing there in his gangster jacket and his trendy
ripped pants, leaning against an SUV.
Disgusting. He probably killed
its’ owner. He looks bored. I raise the Desert Eagle to take aim. This will liven up his morning…
Xander
POV
I’m
just opening the door to Joyces SUV when something happens to the door. A big hole just unfolds in the metal and my
hand goes a little numb as it is ripped out of my hand. I hear the gunshot after, but I am already
in motion, twisting and leaping towards something, someone. A little tiny bald demon with a big, big
gun? He stares at me like a rabbit, he
doesn’t even fire another shot as I come down on him, just stares at me,
wide-eyed, a stupid look of disbelief on his face. He’s thrown to the ground and I’m ripping his throat out as I
realize that he’s not a demon, just a strange little man. Well, he doesn’t taste like a demon, anyway.
Hey,
I’ve seen him before, at school. He was
in the Principals office the other day.
Weird. He can’t be the new
Principal, he’s got to be some sort of circus attraction.
I
think he’s kinda cute. In a completely
heterosexual way. I mean, ew, look
at him, even if I was into that, I couldn’t get into, y’know, that. I give him some blood,
and throw him in the back of the car, wrapping him in Cordy’s expensive designer
carpet. Which is as close as either
of us will ever get to Cordy’s rug, little man, so enjoy it.
I
make it back to Buffys before the sun comes up, but it is so close to up that
I feel sick, hot, flushed. I don’t
want to spend another second out here, so I leave short-stuff in the back,
figuring that the carpet will protect him if any light gets into the garage,
or not, and either way, it isn’t my problem.
I don’t hear anyone and I don’t want to wander around this close to
sunup, since a lot of curtains are up, so I beat feet for the basement.
Hmm. No girls. Not a new situation for the Xan-man, you’d
think I’d be more used to it. I throw
a bunch of random clothes in the dryer for 15 minutes, pull them out all toasty
warm and make a little bed out of it, pulling a warm beach towel over myself
and burrowing down for the day. Heaven
should feel this good.
I
wake up a few hours later, feeling pretty rested, but hungry. Not for blood. I’ve had a shitload of that. I
end up sneaking upstairs and dashing across, towel-covered, to raid the cupboard.
Food. Yum. I
don’t care what it is, as long as I don’t feel all empty. Ah, Pringles. My breath no longer reeks of blood. I sleep again, much more soundly, with that pleasant burn in my
stomach from eating too much junk food.
By
the time the sun goes down enough for me to feel comfortable wandering around
the house, I’ve already been up and waiting.
I hate waiting. They have nothing to read in this place? The hell?
I end up reading ingredients off of junk food containers (wow, they put
phenylkneurotics, or whatever, in everything these days…) and looking at old
photo albums. Joyce loved taking
pictures, I guess, they’ve got like eight big albums, all full up.
Finally
the sun is down, and I head out to the car.
The little man is gone. No dust
though, no scorch marks on the carpet, so he must have scampered off. Or maybe he made it to the grass and I
didn’t notice the ash, I think later, while pulling into Amy’s driveway.
Oh
look. No one here either. Dead Amy-fatherage, ‘though. Then I go to the museum. Annoying lack of Buffy and Giles here as
well, although I find the vault, and some guy who smiled into a .38. That’s real attractive. Man, we are messy, follow the trail of
corpses... I wonder where the .38 went. I wonder where the little mans big gun went
(oh yeah, I left it on the ground where I killed him). I wonder if I will ever remember the gun in
my coat pocket… I am annoyed, and
thinking that I need to put a bell on these girls so I can find them, which
reminds me of something.
I
go to Angels. Nice stuff, I really
didn’t get a great view last time I was here.
Artsy. Weapons. Old crap.
Hello to the leather! And pants
even? Well, isn’t that special. Looks like someone went to cowboy bars on
the weekends… A little baggy, but
they’ll last about two days, tops, the way I go through clothes. I rifle through his stuff, and pick out the
most tasteful bits for myself, and throw the satin and froufy stuff into a pile
that I mentally call ‘even Lestat wouldn’t wear.’
In
the middle of trying on shirts, I notice that I am using my arm. Huh.
Wasn’t that broken rather a lot more yesterday? I know vampires are supposed to heal fast,
but that’s just ridiculous. I wonder if
having about four people worth of blood made it go faster? I did eat like a pig… Speaking of piggy, the stomach looks
good. Some red scratches from my claws,
but they are mostly gone. Er, her claws. Not going to think about that.
Denial mode, full steam ahead.
Do not look back.
I
like this place. Out of the way. Filled with expensive crap I can break. And as an added bonus, it was his. I never really liked him. I mess up his bed, throw some clothes
around, throw my old bloody clothes around.
Make it look lived in. Make it
mine. I wonder if pissing in the corner
would be taking it too far? Maybe
later.
If
I start walking in circles before I lie down, I’m just gonna shoot myself.
My
MTV-generation three-minute attention span has now entered terminal boredom
mode, so I go back out. Joyce’s SUV is
out of gas. Gee, I wonder how that
happened. NASA calls me back to tell me
that my application to be a rocket scientist arrived, and that two of their
researchers laughed themselves to death, but even short-handed, they still
don’t need me.
I
wander through Sunnydale. No sirens
tonight, not even any of those burning trash-cans that I never understood. Where do they come from? Who sets them up? What are these cans for?
What’s burning in them? That
bugs me.
It’s
actually fairly quiet tonight.
Irony
apparently was waiting for me to say that, because the next thing I hear is
automatic weapons fire, roaring motorcycle engines and sweet, sweet
screaming. Suddenly, I’m hungry again,
and not for Pringles.
I
round the corner and see something kinda odd.
A couple of vampire bikers are sweeping around attacking some screaming
girls. At least that’s what it looks
like. Then one of the bikers raises an
Uzi, blows away first one woman, then tracks the other as she runs and guns her
down. Screaming stops. His partner motors over, dismounts and cuts the
brunettes head off with a big knife.
She falls into dust. Okay. Humans / vampires, whatever, I got that part
backwards. They are on bright colorful
Kawasaki crotch-rockets, and dressed in what I assume must be gang colors, for
a gang from Tokyo, since they have matching leather jackets with dragons and
Japanese (or Chinese, or whatever) characters all over them, as well as shiny
red helmets. Whatever they’re going
for, it isn’t subtle.
The
second biker has already moved towards the end of the street, and I manage to
make it to the one getting back on his bike before he guns the engine, where, I
assume he was going to finish off bachelorette number two, taking him off of it
as the bike roars out from beneath him.
He survives the clothesline, but the heel-stomp that cracks his helmet
seems to take the fight out of him. Or
her. Hard to tell, he’s smallish and
the clothes are way baggy. Could be
meat. Could be cake. Could be meatcake.
The
other biker has noticed, and done a wicked impressive spin to turn around and
rush at me. He might be shouting
something, but it isn’t in English, I can’t really hear it, and I’m not really
listening. I find something in my coat
pocket for him. He returns fire with
his Uzi, when I totally miss my first couple shots. He misses. I shoot again,
hitting his bike. He wobbles and falls
over, and tumbles, and rolls and ouch, that had to hurt, hitting that parked
car. Oh, and he dropped the gun. I walk over to him, he is dazed. I kneel down, and then he is dead. The neck-snappy thing isn’t as easy as they
make it look in the movies. I decide to
write an angry letter. I think it will
be an ‘r.’ But it will be a really
pissed-off ‘r.’
I
lean up to see a third ninja biker, this one definitely a woman. She has her visor open. She closes it and roars away. I don’t bother shooting at her. I notice that I am out of bullets
anyway. I can’t believe this. No way did I fire six bullets already. Another thing that never happens in the
movies. I toss the gun. The Uzi, just my luck, is also empty. Guess he shot his wad.
I
eat. Two bikers. Both turned out to be boys, in case anyone
was keeping score. I like their coats,
and even though one of them was a little guy, his stuff was baggy enough that I
could fit in either coat. I take the
other guys first, since it is more comfortable, and the road-rash makes a nice
fashion statement. Hey, they had
wallets too. Cool. American money. Which makes sense, I guess, they probably don’t go to Kyoto for
gas. Huh. They had names. Not so
cool. I throw those bits out.
Their
fancy boots will never fit, so I head out, my bad deed done for the night. I see the second vampire chick getting to
her feet, only staggered by the bullet wound.
She just looks at me, and then heads off. Big with the gratitude, I see.
I
see a few more vamps as I wander through town, most of them looting stuff from
stores. Interesting new take on
credit. I help myself to some rings
from a thoroughly looted jewelry store.
Much like rings I already own, but real silver, not real
silvery-plastic-from-a-gumball-machine.
I spend most of the rest of the night window-shopping and wonder what
it’s like to be a vampire when you don’t have free run of the town.
I
don’t see any more ninja-bikers, although I hear a bunch of engines at one
point. No more gunshots ‘though.
I
am starting to wind up my tour of Sunnydale when I see a little kid, with a few
obvious vampires. He’s all in black,
and not dead or screaming, so I’m gonna go with him being a vampire too. They walk right up, and he looks up to
me. Weird, I wonder how old he is. He could be like a bazillion years old…
“You’re
the one who ran the Scourge out of town,” he says. Since I see no one behind me, he must mean me, and he must mean
the ninja-bikers. Ah, he’s pointing at
the jacket. Cool. Visual aids. Very considerate of him to make accommodations for my disability.
“I
was hungry.” I say, trying to sound neutral, but not sure if I can pull off a
Swiss accent. “Your Master wishes to
meet you. He feels that you may have
potential.” Ooh, Willow would hate this
little twerp. “Not interested. Tell him he’s welcome.” He doesn’t look annoyed. Hmm.
That’s never good, that’s supposed to unbalance him or something, so I
can, um, say something else sarcastic and not get hit? I never remember what sarcasm is good
for. I think it’s an end to itself,
actually. “I’m afraid that wasn’t a
request.” I hate when people say that
‘I’m afraid I have to do this’ or ‘I’m sorry, but I have to say,’ crap. Obviously, they’re not sorry if they’re
gonna do it… He raises his hand toward
me, kinda stiffly and says, “Come. Meet
your Master.”
I
feel, well, annoyed, really. I imagine
this is supposed be all hypnotic, but mostly I feel like I am filling with
anger, with impatience. No, anger was
right. This goes way past impatience. It’s like an ocean of blood carrying me forward. I don’t see him as a child, or a vampire, or
even a threat, I see him as prey.
Without conscious thought, I seize his head between both hands and yank
up, while kicking him in the chest as hard as I can.
His
head comes right off in my hands, his little body flying back and falling into
dust as it hits the ground. My hands
are covered with ash and I am sitting on my ass, having fallen over. I recognize some of the vampires with him,
kids from the high school, all of them, and I just lie there on my back. The sight of his little face, the little
pout of irritation as it crumbled into greasy black ash in my hands is too
much. I laugh. A lot.
The other vampires back away, apparently freaked, and one just turns and
bolts. In seconds they are all
gone. I could care. It is just too funny. All of it.
Guns, wild animals, crazies, little dwarf people, ninja bikers, hypnotic
vampire children. Too much. Too funny.
I’m waiting for the clowns.
Or
not. That stopped the laughing fit. Gah.
I hate clowns.