TITLE: Dry Kind of Love 7/?

AUTHOR: tanith

RATING: PG-13, just to be safe.

ARCHIVE: It's all yours, just let me know.

FEEDBACK: Bring it on. akirgo@yahoo.com

SPOILERS: Probably some minor ones here and there.

DISCLAIMER: See previous chapters.

SUMMARY: You can run, but you can't hide. Future fic.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Oooh, swearing! I'll earn every inch of that PG-13 yet!

*************

Zoe presses her face up against the dirty window and tries to make sense of the dark shapes she sees inside. Old furniture? Nothing living, that's for sure.

"Do you see anything?" Sarah whispers.

Zoe takes a step back. "No. I think all the action's happening upstairs. We're going to have to go inside."

"Do you know where your dad went?"

"I'm right here."

All three teenagers jump. William is standing in the doorway, looking bruised and bloodied and tired. And angry.

"Dad, we -" Zoe starts to say.

"You followed me." Zoe nods, waiting for him to yell. Instead, he lets out a long sigh. "I'm not particularly surprised. Come on. We need to get out of here."

He steps off the porch and they follow behind him, Roger and Sarah hanging back, and Zoe running to catch up with her father.

"Dad," she says quietly, "is mom -"

"I'm working on it." His tone implies that that's all the information she's going to get.

She tries a different approach. "You're bleeding," she says.

He raises his right hand and rubs it across his face. It comes away red. "Oh?" he says. "I hadn't noticed."

The long drive, hidden in hedges, has ended, and they are back on the road in front of the cemetery. William turns and heads off in the direction of home, his walk very similar to the way it was on the way there, only now his head hangs even lower, and only his right hand gets shoved deep into his pocket. The left hangs uselessly at his side, more blood dripping from between the knuckles. He doesn't see to notice, or care.

Zoe walks silently at his side. She has experienced so many conflicting emotions in the past couple of hours that she no longer knows what to think. Right now she is furious, and nearly all her rage is directed at her father. What right does he have to keep her in the dark? It's her life as much as his. And she is starting to think that more and more of her peaceful existence has been a lie.

"How come you and I never go to the doctor's?" she asks suddenly.

William stops in his tracks. Then he realizes that they have come to a halt right outside of the funeral parlor, and starts walking again, more quickly this time. "What do you mean?"

"Mom goes. Sarah and Roger go. Everyone else I know goes. How come you and I never go?"

"Good genes," William says decisively.

"Bullshit."

Zoe knows she's hit on something when he doesn't criticize her for swearing.

"I don't have time to talk about this now, okay luv?" is all he says, and he starts walking faster. She lets him get ahead, falling back to walk with Sarah and Roger.

"Have you guys noticed anything unusual about me?" she asks.

Her friends look taken aback. "Um, you mean apart from this night, right?" Roger says.

She just looks at him. "No," he says, a little too quickly. "I mean, you're not, like, normal, or anything, but that's why we like you. That's why I like you."

"Yeah," Sarah says. "You're not full of it like Kelly and Emily. You're not afraid to speak your mind. It's good-not-normal." She ventures a look over to her friend. Zoe's lips are pressed together into a thin line. "Why do you ask?"

Zoe takes a deep breath. "Nothing," she says. "It's nothing."

No one speaks again until they are back at the Barnet's house. William walks in the front door, looking distracted, but the three teenagers hold back.

"Do you think..." Sarah swallows. "Do you think *it's* still there?"

No one has to ask what *it* is.

"No," Zoe says after a moment. "I'm sure he cleaned it up."

Warily, they walk inside. The entry hall's walls sparkle; they are whiter, perhaps, than they have ever been before. For a moment, it's hard to believe that what they saw the last time they came in this door was real, and they all almost expect Anne to come running out of the kitchen, apologizing profusely because she's burned dinner, and offer them all some lemonade. But she doesn't. And it is all too real.

William starts up the stairs to the second floor, but stops at the landing. "Sarah? Roger? Call your folks and get them to pick you up. Then wait for them outside," he says, in a half-hearted attempt at being parental. "And don't tell them anything," he adds. "Go home and try to forget this whole thing ever happened." He turns and trudges up a few more steps, disappearing around the corner.

"Yeah, right," Sarah says as soon as he is gone, "like we could forget this."

"I'll call my mom and tell her I'm at your house," Roger says, indicating Sarah.

"And I'll call my mom and tell her I'm at your house," Sarah says, nodding at Roger.

"Are you sure, guys?" Zoe asks. She sounds like she has something stuck in her throat. "Because whatever this is, it's really, really bad. You should probably get out while you still can."

"Zoe, you sound like a bad movie," Roger says, grinning now. "I mean, come on, this is the most interesting thing that's happened to us in years."

There is a moment of dead silence, the calm before the storm. And then Zoe explodes.

"My mother is missing! She's probably *dead.* She and my father have almost certainly been lying to me for years. We came home this afternoon and the walls were covered in blood. He may have washed it away, but that does *not* mean it's disappeared. So...so fuck you and your This is interesting.' Just go home! I don't want you here!"

She storms out of the room. Sarah takes one look at Roger and runs after Zoe. "Wait..." she starts to say, but Zoe spins around, effectively cutting her off.

"You too!" she screams. "Just stop whining and get out of here! You can flirt with my father later, okay?" Zoe storms away, and this time Sarah doesn't follow her.

************

William stands in the upstairs bathroom, in front of the mirror, his hands firmly grasping the sides of the grey marble sink. He found the sink in the barn when they first moved in, and he'd installed it himself, but in the interim he'd left it on the dining room floor and cracked it when fell off a ladder and landed on it. He'd patched the crack, but it was still very visible. He stares at it now, to avoid looking into the glass.

Beside the tub rests a large brown trunk. It looks rather like a treasure chest.

William turns on the faucet and takes a sip of water. He checks his watch. Time's up. He pulls the plastic shower cap off his head, crumpling it up and tossing it away. He turns on the hot water and sticks his head under the spray, washing the excess bleach away. When he looks up at the mirror, his hair is bright, shocking white. He slicks it back with a handful of gel and steps back, not so much admiring as assessing his work, making sure he has done things properly. A feeling of dread has settled in the pit of his stomach. To say he isn't looking forward to what he is about to do would be an understatement. He'd rather impale himself on a bed of nails, drink hot oil, roll around on burning coals...but those are not options. This is; his one and only option.

He walks over to the trunk and opens it. He digs through the clothes, finds what he is looking for, and changes into them. Then he removes the trunk's false bottom and pulls out a heavy, black metal box. He enters the combination and flips the box open. The inside is lined with thick, grey foam rubber, dividing the interior into two sections. The two sections contain identical black cubes, about two and a half inches long across each side. Each cube has a single black button in the center, and each is carefully labeled. William picks up the cube on the left, feeling its weight in his hand. Then he shuts the box and returns it to its secret place in the bottom of the trunk.

He walks back to where he was and stares at himself in the mirror. He runs his fingers along the sides of the cube. The plastic is cold to his touch. His whole body feels dipped in ice.

Slowly, he takes off his glasses and sets them on the side of the sink. He won't need them anymore.

His fist closes around the black cube. And then William takes a deep breath and pushes the button.

*************

Sarah and Roger are sitting in the living room, staring at their hands, when they hear the scream.

It starts out low and deep, but it soon grows, becoming a high pitched wail. Their heads snap up when they hear it. Zoe rushes into the room.

"What is it?" Sarah asks her.

"It's my dad," Zoe says instinctively.

She darts out of the room and up the stairs, with Sarah and Roger close on her heels. The scream has turned frighteningly animalistic. They reach the second floor, and Zoe turns right, toward the bathroom. As they round the corner, Roger slips on his socks and falls to the floor. Sarah stops to help him up, and so Zoe is the first to reach the bathroom. She flings the door open, thankful that no one ever got around to buying locks. And then she sees what's on the floor.

From the neck down, it looks human. It wears black jeans, a tight black shirt, black Doc Martens, and a long black coat that looks strangely familiar. But the face...the face is not a human face. The thing on the floor looks up at her with golden eyes, it's fanged mouth open and screaming, it's ridged forehead creased in pain. And somehow, that face is strangely familiar as well.

Zoe is standing frozen in the doorway when her friends catch up with her. Sarah takes one look at the thing on the floor and screams. Roger stumbles backward, slipping on his socks, trying to pull Zoe with him. Zoe pushes him away. She takes two steps forward, crossing the threshold into the bathroom, kneels down next to the now silent but trembling thing, and says softly, "Dad?"

His body convulses once more as another wave of pain hits, but her voice acts like an anchor that holds him to this world. With considerable effort, Spike shakes off his game face and pushes himself into a sitting position.

"Hi," he says weakly. He looks up at where Sarah and Roger stand, shaking and clutching at one another. His voice turns stern and parental. "I thought I told you two to go home."

Both Sarah and Roger look like they wish they had done as they were told. Roger swallows. "We thought," he starts to say, but has to stop and swallow again before continuing, "that we could stay and help."

Spike laughs then, in a very un-William-like manner. "Right, great. Scoobies, version 2.0." He stands and starts patting at his pockets, searching for something. Not surprisingly, he comes up empty handed. "Bugger. I could really use a fag." Off of Roger and Sarah's startled expressions, he adds, "Those are ciggies, kids."

He stretches his arms out, like a big cat waking up after a long nap. Then he stoops and offers Zoe a hand up. She takes it, but refuses to look at him. "You all right?" he asks.

There is a long pause, which Roger recognizes as the Zoe-calm-before-the-storm pause, and he instinctively takes a step back. But Zoe does not yell. She merely grits her teeth and looks Spike directly in the eye. "You," she says levelly. "Are going. To tell us. Exactly. What is going on. Right. Now."

Spike opens his mouth to make some excuse, but something about Zoe's expression stops him. "Now," she says again, and he can't help but smile. He is so proud of her. And she deserves to know the truth.

"Right," he says, taking a deep breath and sitting himself down on the edge of the trunk. "Well, for starters, your mum and I didn't meet at a teacher's conference at the Sheraton..."

*************

TBC