The Light and the Shadows
"Come here"
Shaking her head, Buffy remained where she was.
Taking a step towards her, the boy smiled sadly.
"I've locked the doors."
"Get on your knee's and turn your back to the wall"
"Why?"
"Just shut up and do it! Turn around and face the wall"
The gun was still raised and pointed at her face. Buffy did as he asked, in no position to argue, even if she had wanted too.
"What's your name?"
"Buffy Summers"
"That's a nice name"
"Why aren't they looking for you?"
"Because I didn't do it, did I? The guy in the toilet he did it didn't he"
"The guy in the toilet?"
"The guy I shot and left, they think it's him"
"Why did you do it? You just stood there pulling the trigger again and again. Watching them die, then looking for more.
What sort of person does that?"
"Be quiet."
He stopped front of were she knelt and raised his gun again.
"You want to know? It was fun watching them running around, banging into each other, trying to hide, like I couldn't see them, under the table, behind the sofa, behind each other, pop, pop, pop.
"How many did I get? I lost count, those stupid bastards"
"People, with mothers and fathers"
"No they were shadows, little bundles of grey noise, like you"
"Are you going to shoot me too?"
"You got brothers or sisters?"
"Yeah, I have a younger sister, Dawn"
"She would miss you wouldn't she? Your Mum would be upset too. Even my mum would be upset, if I died and I'm a monster! Your friends they would be lost without you, right?"
"My mum died of a brain tumour last year and your right, they would be"
"What about your boyfriend, I mean you must have a boyfriend?
A boyfriend you love. Pretty little thing that you are"
"Yes I have a boyfriend and I love him more than anything, does it make a difference?"
"No, cause your gonna die anyway"
Buffy walked closer to him.
"The guy in the toilet was he planned, did you plan for him to get the blame? Or was he just another shadow on your list"
Tears began to fall from the boys eyes, sliding down his cheeks.
"I shot Scott and I left him there!"
"And now everyone will think it's him"
"What was your great plan? You and Jason were friends, weren't you; couldn't he go through with it?"
"I don't want to talk about Jason, he let me down"
"Do you really think they are going to let you out of here?"
"They will have their shooter."
"There is a chance that Scott might not be dead"
"Are you lying?"
"Your accomplice kills himself before the fun and the boy you're pinning it on could be still alive. It's a bit of a mess isn't it?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about"
"You chickened out, the plan was to kill as many as possible, cause as much chaos as possible and then kill yourself but you didn't."
"I'm not gonna chicken out this time; you think that I am so desperate to live. Like it's some big deal. I always try and be different but I always end up copying someone else."
"What's your name?"
"Does it matter?"
"If you're going to kill me, I would like to know your name"
"Neil Corrigan, you know today didn't turn out how I expected"
"22nd of April, your big day"
"How did you know? It makes me Libra doesn't it?"
"It's your birthday, your gift to the world"
"No stupid, it's my birthday surprise."
None of Neil's story added up in Buffy's mind.
"Your birthday surprise? You didn't know?"
"I had no idea it was happening until this morning"
XXX
"Inspector Dalton?"
"What is it, Harry"
"This video clip was sent to a news station this morning"
"Play it"
A blonde boy's face appears on the screen. His whole face twisted in hatred and anger. His voice was cold as he spoke.
"By now, you will know the details. You'll know how many, Might even know how. You'll know the names but you won't know why. You won't understand; you're not capable so I had to make it loud enough for you to hear, your listening now though aren't you. See even now, you don't know how big this is going to get. How far it reaches. The effects in range of this action. You still don't realise that I'm even talking to you, and why would I. You're going to try and write it off. He was a loner, a depressive, a sad little psycho, same old, same old but it keeps happening doesn't it and you don't know how to make it stop.
Because I am the Light and you are the shadows."
He raises his gun and points it at the screen before it freezes on his mad face.
The other officers in the room who had watched the clip over Inspector Daltons shoulder.
XXX
"You didn't know it was going to happen"
Neil was sitting on the stage, his face downcast. Buffy took a step closer to him.
"I told you, it would have ruined the surprise"
"I'll tell you what happened"
2 and a half hours previously..
(Neil telling Buffy)
"So what is it, what did you get me?"
Scott grinned as he looked at Neil.
Slowly he lifts out the gun from his black duffel bag.
Neil's whole face lit up as he looked at the weapon.
"Oh my god, can I touch it?"
Both laugh as Neil holds the pistol in his hand.
"God, its heavy, I thought you were joking when you said it was something special."
Grinning, Scott pulls out a different type of gun, an automatic.
"So what should we do then Neil?"
"What did you have in mind, Mr Weston?"
"That depends, who would you most likely scare the living shit out of"
Both burst out laughing before walking out of the classroom and into the corridor where they see Claire Ashton.
Walking up behind her, Neil in front, both laughing quietly.
"Claire"
Turning she looks at them, frowning but when she see's who it is she sneers.
"What do you want?"
Neil smiled at her.
"I just wanted to talk to you; we got off on the wrong foot"
Claire looked round Neil at Scott who is standing closely behind grinning at her.
"Just give him a chance Claire, life's to short not to get on"
Neil took a small step forward.
"I've got something for you. I keep it in my pants"
Claire shook her head in disbelief at his constant harassment.
"Oh for gods sake, why can't you take a hint, just leave me alone, I thought you were going to talk some sense into him Scott"
Neil pulls the gun from his crotch and points it at Claire.
Backing away, Claire looks fearful for a moment before her rational mind tells her, its ok, it's probably fake.
"Stop it, Neil. Tell him, Scott."
Neil laughed. "
"Its heavy, it's real. Do you want to hold my piece?"
Scott began to laugh.
"Come on, Neil. I think you're starting to scare her"
Neil looked at his friend.
"Do you think so? I'm sure she's had a bigger one than this, haven't you Claire."
Finally mastering up the courage to speak, Claire edged back another step.
"Thank you for showing me your big piece Neil. Now I have got to go"
Turning, she began to swiftly walk away.
Scott rolled his eyes and pulled his gun from his backpack, and shot her between the shoulder blades.
Neil's eyes widened as she hit the floor, letting out a cry of pain and fear as she lay bleeding.
"Now that's what I call a bit of decent surprise"
Neil looked back at Scott who stood, grinning as he looked at Claire, who was now laid motionless on the floor.
"What have you done, Scott?"
"It was what you wanted, Neil, you always hated her for the way she never saw you, always said you wished she was dead"
"What? I was joking having a laugh"
Scott laughed, shaking his head.
"If I had told you, it would have ruined Fernando's surprise"
Stepping away from his friend, blinking rapidly, Neil turned and ran towards Claire.
"Claire? Claire?"
"She was a moron, Neil"
Looking back at Scott, he began to panic.
"Scott, this is real!"
"No It isn't, Neil, it's not real. None of them are real"
Smiling at him, he walked towards him.
"Look, I'll show you how it works"
Taking the pistol from the floor where Neil had dropped it he pushed open the door and stepped into another corridor, which was deserted.
Scott raised his gun and shot at a boy in a chequered shirt who was coming down the stairs. He fell, dead before he hit the floor, his folders scattering around him.
Turning round and grinning, he laughed at Neil.
"They are just shadows, come on"
Walking forwards, Neil trailing along behind, he turned his head back to Neil and gave him a happy smile.
"You have no idea how good this feels"
Scott pushed open the door to a shorter corridor to were Matthew Frisk, an old friend of theirs stood.
"Scott, what's going on? I heard banging?"
Scott shook his head.
"Nothing Matt."
Raising the gun, he shot him in the neck and watched as he fell wide eyed to the floor, choking.
"Change your world, Neil, yes we can"
Raising the hood of his black flame hoodie over his face, he walked on leaving Neil, standing shaking and shocked and frozen. He watched Scott carry on and turning Neil ran into the men's bathroom behind him.
Placing the bag Scott gave him on the floor, Neil looked up into the mirrors above the sinks. His eyes were huge and watery, his whole body was shaking and the world seemed to be blurring at the edges.
His head whipped around as he heard gunshots and the screams of terrified and dying students. Placing his hands over his ears, Neil began to cry and flew into one of the cubicles. Sitting down on the floor next to the toilet, he brought his knees up to his chin and began to whisper, over and over again.
"It's not real, it's just a joke, and it's not real."
He sat there for just over 20 minutes before a faint knock on the cubicle door alerted him to the presence of Scott.
"Neil, come on out man, I'm tired."
On the other side of the door, Scott pulled down his hood and took a step back, smiling.
"I got them, Neil, at least 20 of them, you should have seen them all running around. Banging into each other, trying to hide, like I couldn't see them, under tables, behind chairs, shit man, they even hid behind each other. Pop, pop, pop. They're all gone now."
Neil was still shaking but managed to make his voice sound confident.
"I'll be out, just give me a minute, Scotty."
Shaking his head, Scott signed.
"Look, come on man, its boring out here"
Smirking, he took the gun Neil had threatened Claire with earlier and pushed it under the door. Neil pushed himself as far away from it as he could.
"Happy Birthday, Neil"
Opening up his phone, Neil shook slightly as he pressed in the number he knew off by heart.
Scott froze when he heard the phone keypad start to beep.
"Who you calling, man."
Neil put the phone to his ear but Jason didn't answer, he knew he wouldn't but he had hoped.
"Neil!"
Kicking down the door, Scott stepped inside.
"Who are you calling? The police?"
"No! I would never do that"
Snatching the phone from his hand as Jason's voicemail began to play; Scott stepped back into the main bathroom.
Looking down and laughing as he saw the caller ID, he turned to Neil and shook his head.
"Was it you? Did you do that too him?"
Frowning at him, Scott shook his head.
"Look at yourself, your pathetic. Didn't you say the other night that you hated him?"
Tears began to fall from Neil's eyes as he shook his head.
"You killed him didn't you?"
"No I didn't, my friend did."
"What friend? Your only friends were Jason and I"
"He is amazing Neil, he showed me so much about the world. Showed me what was in it. Showed me what had been living right on our doorsteps for so long and we didn't even know it"
"What are you talking about, Scott!"
"Vampires and Demons, Neil, they exist. Fernando is a demon. This was gonna happen even if it hadn't have been your birthday. Fernando was planning it all anyway and as it was your birthday and you were my friend we decided it would be your Birthday surprise. More of a surprise to the shadows than you but still."
Tears began pouring from Neil's eyes once again, making Scott scowl.
"Why are you crying?"
"Jason's dead and you have lost it. Jason was fine; we went shopping a few days ago for your party next week. We bought glow sticks, he was so happy, why would he kill himself."
Scott shook his head.
"My party, no, the glow sticks, they were for your birthday surprise"
"He knew about this? What you were planning to do?"
"Yeah, of course he did, he knew Fernando too, he was all up for it then but when it came down to it, he was a coward, a shadow, just like you"
A yell of pain echoed towards them from down the corridor.
"Can you hear him? It's cruel to let him suffer. I should put him out of his misery"
Stepping past him, Scott began to walk to the cubicle to retrieve the pistol and turned back to Neil.
"You're all words, no action, for years we talked about revenge on them and when the golden opportunity comes along, you don't take it"
Neil's shakes began to lessen as his anger at Scott grew. Snatching the automatic gun in Scott's hand, he pulled it, none too gently from him, nearly breaking his Scott's fingers in the process.
Scott looked livid, his eyes cold.
"I never asked you to do any of this"
Scott took a menacing step towards him as Neil's hands shook.
"Your friend didn't just kill Jason did he? It was your idea, wasn't it?"
Scott's whole face turned red as he struggled to control his anger.
"I do all this for you and all you can talk about is Jason. Don't you fancy me as much as you fancy Jason? It's pathetic!"
Neil tightened his grip on the gun in his hand.
"No, its not"
"No not that, that your sad little queer thing, the really sad pathetic bit, is that you never had the balls to tell him, maybe if he had known, he wouldn't have killed himself. I mean if you felt loved, you wouldn't kill yourself would you? Not if someone told you that they loved you. That's your problem Neil, you don't feel enough, you don't hate enough to do what you really want to do and you don't love enough to do anything about it"
"I'm not you, Scott, I'm not strong enough."
Shaking his head, Scott sneered at him.
"You always wanted to be me though? I mean you even dress like me? I always took it as a compliment. You were like my own little shadow"
Neither of them said anything for a few moments, both listening to the screams and the police sirens until Scott broke it.
"Do you like fireworks, Neil?"
Rolling his eyes when he didn't answer, he walked up so he was standing directly in front of him, hand reaching out for the gun.
"They will think it was both of us, Neil, they will think you are as strong as me"
Scott outstretched hand became a fist as he turned and headed back for the other gun
Neil clutched the gun in his hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"You know what, Neil"
But Neil couldn't listen to his lies anymore and with 2 shots Scott Weston fell to the floor, gasping as the bullets embedded in his face felt like white hot knives.
Neil watched him fall.
"Neil, what have you done?"
"The right thing"
Putting the automatic in his duffel bag he left and walked out of the door and into the corridor, heading towards the hall. He would be able to hopefully slip out of the back doors unnoticed.
XXX
It had been over 3 and a half hours since the police had arrived and night had fallen. Giles had been helping Principal Snyder identify and find all the pupils who had been in school that day. Willow had joined them soon after it had grown dark. Buffy had not yet been found and another student Neil Corrigan was still missing. The police believed he was the second gunman after they discovered he, like Scott Weston had been a friend if Jason's.
"Inspector Dalton, one of the gun squad has spotted Buffy Summers in the assembly hall with what we believe is the suspect, he appears to have an automatic hand gun"
Angel's whole body froze as he heard this. He had known it was a very high possibility but he had still hoped it not to be true, that Buffy would be hiding somewhere, safe.
The police where trying to plan a strategy which protected Buffy from harm but kept Neil alive for questioning later.
XXX
"You didn't do this, Neil. You stopped it. You stopped Scott"
"No, I didn't"
"Look at it this way, Neil; you saved a lot of people."
"Do you think that's why I shot him? To save you lot. I did it because I wanted him to stop talking"
Buffy shook her head slowly, taking in the boy in front of her.
"I don't believe you"
"I was gonna tell Jason how I felt. I was gonna write it down, because I knew I would mess it up. I was gonna tell him that night. Jason and me in the car, driving round every corner shop in Sunnydale, trying to find those bloody glow sticks for Scott's party. Took us half the night. Just Jason and me, freezing our arses off in his rubbish car"
Buffy froze when he mentioned the glow sticks. Her mind trying to focus on the facts that lie in front of her and make sense of it all.
"This isn't over. Scott was planning something else."
"Its over, Scott killed everyone. It's all over"
"No, these glow sticks, they mean something, listen I have to call my watcher, please I can help you out of this."
"Do whatever you want; it's all over now, no matter what you say"
Pulling out her mobile, she quickly called Giles.
"Buffy, thank god. Are you alright? Get the boy to surrender or he will be shot? Buffy?"
"Giles, calm down. Neil hasn't done anything; he shot Scott to stop him from killing people. I need to know what is in Glows ticks?"
"Glow sticks?"
"Yes Glow sticks"
"Buterol Nitrate, why?"
"Scott sent Jason and Neil out to buy them a few nights ago and said it was for his party but I think it's more than that."
"Buffy, Buterol nitrate becomes highly explosive when you mix it with other acids."
"Ok, Giles I have to go but listen, Neil means no harm but don't send anyone in just yet, he's still upset and might do something he will regret."
"Ok Buffy, I'll call you back in ten minutes."
"Goodbye Giles"
She then hung up the phone and turned to Neil who sat watching her.
"Glow sticks are explosive when they mix with other acids. That's what Scott meant when he said to you there was going to be fireworks, when you were in the bathroom. This wasn't about you or the shooting; the whole campus is full of people, parents and students, police, medics. Do you understand what I'm saying Neil."
"Yeah"
"We have to warn them, this isn't just about me and you anymore, it's about the hundreds of people who will get killed by Scott's bombs unless we do something."
Tears began to stream down Neil's face as his shoulders began to shake with sobs.
"I saw them, Buffy. All those people dead, I could've helped them and now I don't know what to do! Just tell me what to do"
"You know what to do, Neil"
Raising the automatic with a shaking hand, he slowly placed it in Buffy's. Holding the weapon made her feel sick, the death and suffering it had caused. Throwing it across the floor, she knelt beside Neil and slowly wrapped her arms around his shaking form, trying to comfort him as best as she could.
She flinched slightly as the doors where burst from there hinges by police all pointing there guns at Neil's shaking form in her arms.
"He's done nothing wrong, don't hurt him"
Inspector Dalton walked slowly over to the pair on the floor.
Laying his hand on Neil's shoulder, he smiled gently.
"It's alright son, you saved many lives today"
Helping them both to their feet, Inspector Dalton immediately helped Neil over to a medic who began checking a wound on his face.
Buffy stood frozen for a moment, before feeling a pair of large cool arms wrap around her waist and a gently kiss to the back of her head. Turning in his embrace, Buffy looked up at him and smiled, her eyes filling with tears as she looked into Angel's watery eyes. Gently stroking her hand down his face, she tenderly wiped away his tears and slowly kissed him, trying to put every emotion she had ever felt in his presence into that one kiss. Pulling away, he wrapped his arm around her and slowly the walked outside. Angel led her straight to an ambulance just outside the building where Neil sat. Walking towards him, she kissed his cheek and
XXX
A strange ticking noise made most of the officers in the hall freeze.
Inspector Dalton looked around for its source and his mind went back to the video he had watched earlier.
"You won't understand, you're not capable so I had to make it loud enough for you to hear, your listening now though aren't you?"
Looking up into the ceiling, Inspector Dalton's eyes widened, horrified as he watched the faint light green spotlight in the vent turn scarlet red. A loud beeping signalled what was about to happen and people had barely moved before the little glow stick bombs, all planted all in the school exploded, killing a few people and knocking many of the officers to the ground, burying them in the rubble.
XXX
Fernando looked on from the shadows.
He may have lost his most keen supporter but he had caused a lot of upset and chaos.
This wasn't the end.
There would be plenty more chaos.
He was going to kill the Slayer and her vampire.
A town without a slayer, a town of chaos.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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