Wherever I May Roam
Disclaimer: own nothing, mayhap in another world, but not in this one, say thankya.
Summary: Xander makes a sacrifice, and we all know that on the Hellmouth, no good deed goes unpunished.
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Jason Voorhees moved quietly along the road, in pursuit of his final victim for the night's work. The magical prisoners had been released, though housed inside a 'safe place' to await Flagg's presence in the morning. All that was left for Voorhees to accomplish was the dispatching of the last demonoid, a former soldier of the Initiative named Graham.
He knew that his last victim was going for a small plane, that he would attempt to reach Sunnydale and inform his master about the fall of his camp. Voorhees knew that it would not matter at all if he should succeed, but all the same, Jason had no intent on allowing him to escape his blade.
The mass killer had a high body count, over 10,000 dead in his abnormally long lifetime, and he would gain at least one more before the night was ended.
The huge 'man' lifted up his latest weapon, and waited for a long moment, watching with a keen eye for his prey. The jeep housing the Graham demonoid passed by him moments later and, at the exact right time, Voorhees used all of his considerable strength to throw the weapon.
The dead deer struck the jeep upon the engine, rolling into the actual vehicle as it did so, driving its horns into the demonoid's body. The vehicle came to an abrupt stop, but the deer did not, taking a large chunk of the demonoid and more than a small amount of the vehicle with it as it continued to roll.
Jason walked calmly down the hill, not bothering to rush as the demonoid struggled to get out. Eventually, though, it did escape the jeep, just in time to see Jason walk out from the bushes, machete in hand and that dead look of murder inside his eyes (as they always were). Graham raised his arm up, holding an AK-47 inside his hand, and began to shoot it off. Jason slowed to a stop as his body was marauded by bullets, but he did not fall.
The Kalashnikov emptied quickly, and the demonoid had no choice but to abandon his weapon and attempt an escape on foot. Jason stared after him for a long moment, before walking along after him. While Graham was still fairly quick in step, even after all his injuries, Jason moved at a supernaturally quick pace even as he appeared to be merely ambling about, easily gaining on the demonoid.
Eventually, Graham reached the small aircraft. He grunted as he tripped over an unseen log and, mindful of his pursuer, quickly returned to his feet. He reached out, his hand coming to rest on the door handle, already in the process of turning it to gain entry into the aircraft...
...only to be impeded as the blade of a machete flowed through the air, slicing through human and demonic flesh, metal, and bone as it tore his arm off, sending the demonoid down to the ground.
Graham clutched his hand to his chest, now painfully aware that these would be his last moments on Earth. As Jason walked up to him, hovering over him as a dark spectre of death, Graham decided that he would make his last moment meaningful.
"Y'know," the demonoid said, causing Jason to stop for a moment out of curiosity, "It's never easy, serving a master. I believe in Adam, believe in his cause, and in his purpose, but...it's so hard carrying out his will, knowing that before he had taken me, I never would have even considered it."
Jason, in a very odd flash of pure rage, lashed out with his weapon, slicing straight into Graham's head and sending him from that plain of existence. That was not enough for Jason, though, as his anger took over. Again and again he plunged the blade in, blood soaked tears flowing freely from the metal onto the ground, Voorhees's clothing, and his mask, covering him with the spoils of his inhuman rage.
"Y'know, I think you can stop," Jason came to an abrupt halt in his actions, turning immediately to face his......master, who was smiling at him, though the smile did not quite reach his eyes, "He's dead...deader than a doornail, as they say."
Jason walked toward Flagg, momentarily lost in the desire to inflict harm on the man, before he felt the familiar pain that came with encroaching upon his magical shield.
"Whoa, easy boy," Flagg grinned at him, "Don't forget who you work for."
Jason stared at him, but slowly, his body lost its tension.
"Good," Flagg said with a chuckle, "Nice kill, by the way. And, I do believe it is time for a reward."
Flagg reached forward, and Jason checked his desires to back away and to kill him simultaneously, remaining as he was while Flagg laid his hand on his chest.
Jason shook in sheer pain as Flagg's energy entered his body, mind, and soul. He felt something begin to grow...atop his head, an itching sensation that Jason had never felt before. He could feel his body itching as well, not quite writhing as it had when Flagg had remade him totally, but the sensation was completely foreign and...pleasantly painful to him.
Finally, it came to an end. Jason felt the same in terms of his mental state, as he could reason the same (which, is to say, meant that he knew how to perform basic tasks and some complex ones that came naturally with his way of growing up in the woods of Crystal Lake) and also felt the same rage that he had felt since he'd discovered that his mother had died. His curiosity was abated when Flagg conjured up a full-length mirror, presenting Jason with his reward.
His skin had gained pigmentation, to the point where he could actually see that he had been white before his death. The amount of decay on his body had decreased as well, even though there was still a substantial amount of rot. The most noticeable thing, however, was the dark material that was falling down the top of his head and bordering his shoulders.
He had hair now.
Flagg interrupted his musings, tossing the mirror aside and saying, "You can look at yourself later. Right now, I have a mission for you."
Flagg reached up to Voorhees, who once more resisted both urgings, and pointed his two fingers at Jason's eyes. Jason felt an intense heat behind his skull for a short moment, and then it disappeared, having momentarily turned his eyes a white color before fading away.
"There," Flagg said with a smile, turning his back to him as he did so, "Now, Jason, I have a mission for you. I'm sending you on an errand. I need you to kill someone, and I don't know who they are. My sight cannot reach that far. However, you shall know them when you see them. They shall have a glowing white aura about them. They need to be dead before the end of the night."
Jason inclined his head slightly, looking pointedly up at the night sky.
"I know, I know, not a lot of time," Flagg said with a smirk, "But I have every confidence in you.
"Now...you are going to Arcadia."
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CFZ:
Xander sat down at the base of an opening in the cave system, which revealed the area of the artificial oasis that had been selected as the vehicle storage area. He had no choice but to admire the sheer number of vehicles down there, and idly wondered if he could requisition one of the Jaguars.
"Nice, isn't it," he looked over to his right as Titus eased himself against the window-like structure, leaning over to look out at it as Xander was sat on the ledge, legs dangling in the air.
"Very," Xander agreed, "I want that Jaguar," Xander said, pointing to the '75 black vehicle.
"Nice," Titus agreed as Dave came up to them, pouring some marijuana into his pipe as he did so, "Y'know, some of those down there are mine."
"Oh, here we go," Dave muttered to himself as he lit the pipe, inhaling as he pointedly ignored Titus's finger.
"Really," Xander asked, amazed as he took the pipe from Dave as he coughed up a lung, "Which one?"
"See those six right there," Titus said, indicating two Lexus's, a Mustang, a Charger, a Hummer, and a Lamborghini.
Xander coughed out loudly, partially due to the weed, but more so out of shock upon seeing those vehicles.
"All those are YOURS?!" Xander asked.
"I remember once," Titus said as he lit the pipe, "The Los Angeles Times reported that over 63 percent of the average American households are now considered dysfunctional. And that was back before the war," Titus lit the pipe and took a large hit from it, inhaling air as he did so, then eased it out of his system to say, "I said to myself, 'good. That means we're the majority, we're normal. That means that when Armageddon comes, 37 percent of the world will lose their fuckin' minds. Us 63 percent will pause, take a drink, smoke a joint, and then say 'HEY! There's no one watchin' the Lexus dealership.''"
Xander laughed at that, enjoying yet another great laugh, the latest in a great many he'd had in that day alone.
Titus and Dave both shared a laugh at that, both having heard and told that joke (true as it was) many times, but they enjoyed hearing Xander laugh at it all the same.
"Damn, Dave, that's some kickass weed," Titus said with a grin as he passed on the pipe, "When're you tripping out to see your supplier?"
"Sometime next week," Dave said with a chuckle, refilling the pipe as he did so, "Saul's working on a new concoction, mixing in some Pineapple Express with some Purple Haze with a dash of magically enhanced Hydro. Jay and Bob actually came up with a great idea about growing it in magically enhanced dirt, I dunno what spells they'd use, but it sounds like it'd be a really good idea."
"Who are up at that place," Titus asked out of curiosity.
"Oh, the farm?" Titus nodded, "There's Ted Jones, Carla, Saul, Red, Dale Denton, he runs the FZRA station in that area, Jay and Silent Bob, along with a few soldiers and bikers that live in the barn. It's kinda a hub station for travelers, they can buy guns, ammo, weed, anything they have to sell or barter for."
"Maybe we should move out there once this is done," Titus suggested.
"I'd love to," Dave said with a grin, "Saul told me he's thinking about taking a trip up to some place called Crystal Lake, he heard a rumor that there's several miles worth of wild growing pot out there that can be harvested."
Xander smiled to himself. Only at the end of the world could such things be discussed in the open. Still, things could be worse, he figured.
At least things were peaceful where they were. In some places...
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...it was pure Hell on Earth.
Arcadia.
The once lush city had been reduced to a shriveled version of its former glory (gory). Buildings lay in disrepair, ruin, simply collapsed on the ground. Here was a true vision of the post-apocalyptic war, a true necropolis. Dead bodies littered the ground, both human and not, some burning in the fires, others left to fester and rot. And others still lingering, moaning in pain as life would not escape their bodies without a terrible fight.
The city was under siege. Demonoids lead the charge, officers to the ones on the front lines, the Hellhounds, the bats, with some larger creatures at their disposal as well. Arcadia was on the front lines for the New England Free Zone, the place where Adam's forces had begun hitting repeatedly since the beginning of the year.
In the rubble, the siege, lay the key to it all.
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The young man moved quickly, running for all that he was worth as his pursuers gained on him. Hellhounds, two of them, leaped over discarded dead and dying alike, salivating at the idea of this fresh meal.
The young man ran fast, clutching his Kalashnikov tightly, ignoring the chaffing in his worn-out black BDUs and the painful sensation of his combat boots rubbing and stabbing at his foot. He could hear the pounding of the two Hellhounds behind him, echoing along the long stone hallway as he ran. He turned a sharp right, seemingly throwing them off his trail, but they easily managed to turn and continue their pursuit.
The young man saw a large piece of rubble up ahead, quickly deciding what to do about it as he saw that it was blocking his path. He gripped his weapon tight, hearing the sounds of the hounds of Hell swiftly catching up with him and, in a last great burst of adrenaline, leaped on top of the stone and did a running jump off of it, flying 6 or 7 feet to safety as he did so.
The hounds, only a few steps behind, attempted to simply leap over the large stone...only to be met by a lowered metallic netting, catching them hard as they flew into it. The hounds should in pain as they were electrified by the net, before mercifully being knocked unconscious as two tranquilizer darts flew into their bodies.
The young man sat up, panting out as he did so, and pulled off his ski mask, revealing himself to be an unshaven young man with black hair and a small scar on his left cheek.
"Next time, someone else can be the bait," he said with a gasp, slowly coming to his feet as he did so, "I need to work out more."
"Oh, chill out, Rove," a sarcastic feminine voice echoed out, drawing his attention to the two black-clad people coming out of hiding from their positions on the second floor where they had lowered the net, "It's not like you're dead, just exhausted. But yeah, you need to work out more, I could hear you huffing and puffing a mile away, fatass."
Adam Rove rolled his eyes, smiling as Grace Polk playfully picked on him. That smile grew even more as the other black figure came down, taking off her ski mask as well, her own smile warming his heart.
"I don't agree with you on the fatass deal, Grace," Joan Girardi said with a laugh, "But I do agree, next time, someone else is bait...in fact, from now on, no Adam as bait!"
"Oh, show some sympathy," Grace said with a smirk, "It's not like you're the only thing around here that thinks Adam's so good and tasty...of course, they mostly just wanna eat his brains, but still, tasty."
"You think...brains are tasty," Adam asked her.
"I...no! No, I was just-" Grace tried to backpedal, but stopped abruptly as a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and a pair of lips kissed her neck.
"Let 'em have this one," Luke Girardi said with a grin, which multiplied as Grace placed her hand on his own and pouted.
"That was the best one yet," Joan congratulated as she put an arm around Adam's waist, pulling him close, "And your aim's improving, Luke."
"Eh, what can I say," Luke grinned, "All those years learning how to split the atom really honed my marksmanship."
Joan rolled her eyes before turning her attention to the two unconscious beasts, saying, "Are they dead?"
"Nah,"Adam said, "They're alive."
"We'd better go ahead and start carting them back to base," Grace said snarkily as she pulled out her radio, "Wheels, this is...Sunshine," she practically growled out, "Come in."
"Wheels here," Joan momentarily smiled, pleased to hear her big brother's voice.
"Did I mention how much I hate that name," Grace griped into the radio.
"Imagine how I feel about mine," Kevin Girardi said with a laugh, "What's your status? Do you have the precious cargo?"
"Status is five-by-five, we are inbound with precious cargo," Grace said as Joan and Adam wrapped up the two Hellhounds while Luke stood guard, "Link up in three minutes."
"Roger, out."
Adam and Luke dragged the two bodies outside of the former Arcadia High School, with Joan and Grace keeping watch with their weapons at the ready. As they reached the outside, a long ATV with a trailer attached to it pulled up. The man sitting on it was dressed in black BDUs as they were, and as he took his hands off the handles, he pulled up an Uzi and kept watch, but smiled at them as they came up.
"Hey, guys," Kevin greeted them, "Whoo, two! Nice job."
"We try," Joan deadpanned as she came up and sat behind her brother, back-to-back as she manned the M2 attached to the back of the ATV while Luke and Adam loaded up the bodies.
"Shit," Kevin shouted out, "We gotta jet, guys!"
Joan chanced a look behind her, and saw the seven or more Hellhounds that was causing her big brother worry.
Wordlessly, the three finished their work and piled into the trailer, and Kevin shot out a couple of rounds from his Uzi before starting up the ATV and pulling out as quickly as he could. Joan shot off a few rounds from the M2 as they got underway, taking out two hounds with them. Quickly, they were on the streets of Arcadia with the hounds fading in the distance as they headed for base.
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Will Girardi was no happy man, and had not been in several years.
During the early 2000s, he and his family had lived in blissful ignorance of the world at large. Even when Adam had started his campaign, they had all thought the military would put a quick and decisive end to it.
They hadn't.
Adam's reign of terror had started slowly, but quickly, it had snowballed into something more. Will remembered very well the day Washington DC had fallen, the day the Hellhounds had shown up, the first strikes against Arcadia...the day his wife had been taken from him.
Oh, by far and large, Will had been spared many hardships during the war. While his wife had been lost during the early days of the assault on Arcadia, none of his children had died, and to him that was nothing short of a miracle, one of which Will Girardi thanked God for every day.
The former Chief of Police had learned very quickly that there truly are no atheists in foxholes. Especially after his daughter had introduced him to the one and only Alpha and Omega. To think, his daughter used to talk to God all the time, and still did on rare occasions.
At first, he had been angry at God, to the point where he'd actually attempted to assault the Deity. He had failed, of course, but after that meeting, God had opened Will's eyes to certain facts that he could not deny.
Free will was existent, and always had been. The travesty that was occurring all over the world was not a plague sent down by God as punishment, nor was his wife being taken from him...it was all the result of free will, the choice to create a thing like Adam, and God, as much as He wanted to, could not take it away from them no more than Will could have taken Kevin's handicap from him. When God swore, He really meant it.
In the end, that had been what it took to make Will come around to the notion of God...the fact that they were both fathers, only God had the honor of playing Father to the whole world.
As he walked into his office for the briefing, however, Will put aside his relationships with the four people waiting for him. Only two were his actual children, but he loved the other two as though they were his own as well. However, this was neither the time nor the place for familial relationships...this was the time for professionalism.
"At ease," Will Girardi, commanding officer for the Arcadia Free Zone, said as he took a seat behind the desk in what had been his office as police chief, "I understand we now have two hostiles to examine. Well done."
"Thank you, Sir," all four echoed out at once.
"Now...go get some downtime," Will ordered with a smile.
"Yes, Sir," all four said with grins.
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Joan laughed to herself as she go up from her cot, leaving Adam, Luke, and Grace to joke around some more as she went to get herself some more rations. She knew that things were bad, but to just be around her best friends was a blessing every day. It was, like, they were destined to stay together or something.
She honestly had no idea what she would do if she were to lose even one of her friends.
Sighing to herself, she knew she shouldn't act as though they had been her only friends. Glynis had died after being called up to serve in Washington, as a member of their effort to improve upon the nuclear bomb. Her airplane had been shot down.
Friedman had been rounded up during the first attack, placed into one of Adam's slave camps somewhere. Grace had not taken it well, knowing that Friedman was suffering in much the same fashion as their people had during World War II.
She allowed herself a brief moment of weakness in which she remembered her mother, bringing a small tear to her eye as she did so.
"Here," she heard a voice to her left say, "Drink this."
She nodded in thanks, accepting the cup of water and taking a long drink from it, before looking up to see the man before her.
"You," she said in a mixture of surprise and indignation.
"Hey, Joan," the cute man in a brown coat said with a small smile.
"So, I hafta ask," Joan started without preamble, "I heard that the Messiah was here, somewhere in California. Is that true?"
Ordinarily, when she asked God a question, she did not get an answer or, at best, an answer that she couldn't understand. When God answered, though, she received quite a shock.
"Randall Flagg is not the Messiah," God said, His face shrouded in shadow as anger overtook His features, causing Joan to take a step back, "He is...something else."
"Randall Flagg," Joan asked, not having heard the name before, "Is he the devil, or, um, the Antichrist?"
"He is not," God said, His features returning to normal, "He is a rat, nothing more. His presence here, however, is changing things, which brings us to what I will ask you to do."
"Oh, joy, another assignment," Joan griped with a frown, "What've ya got for me?"
"Two things," God said simply, "First, go to 717 Laurens Street, and go inside the building. You will need to look fast, though. And when you find it, do not let it do the holding."
"Great," Joan said, "We supposed to find something. Any idea what?"
"You'll know," God said, "Then, when you meet him, remember that Xander is to be trusted, not Flagg."
"Wait, we're going to meet Flagg," Joan asked in surprise, "But we're in Arcadia!"
"Go, Joan," God said, turning away from her as He did so, "Your time's running out."
God waved at her without looking at her as He walked on, turning a corner and escaping her site. Joan stared after the Deity for a long moment, before turning around and running for her friends.
Had she pursued Him, she might have seen the visage of the young man in the brown coat fade away, revealing an older man dressed in a suit with wings on.
"How'd it go," Metatron turned to face Rufus, who had accompanied him on his mission.
"Oh, swimmingly," Metatron said as they began walking, "The Lord informed Mrs. Rove about her new assignment thru me, and she's off to accomplish it."
"Yeah, well, we got a problem," Rufus said, "When God flowed down from Heaven into you, Flagg noticed it. He's sent Jason to find and kill them."
"Flagg would not have felt it without God intending for him to," Metatron explained without much thought, "Much is happening tonight, Apostle. It is not for us to question His will, merely to enforce it."
Rufus laughed at that, saying, "Theirs is not to reason why, but to do and to die."
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Highway in Florida:
A lone station wagon flew down the deserted highway. Loud music echoed out from the stereos, making the abnormally quiet highway alive in music. A solitary man sat in the driver's seat, hands and feet pounding along with the beat as he smoked a cigar.
"Ah, she's a brick...house!!! Well, she's the one, the only one, built like an Amazon! WOW!!" Jules Winfield belted out, enjoying the sounds as he took a long puff from his cigar.
He was about to come to his next stop on his road, the long road that he had been traveling since that fateful day in 1994 when he had been saved from an errant bullet along with his former partner Vincent Vega. Unlike his former partner, who had died at the hands of a boxer named Butch shortly thereafter, Jules had heard God's message loud and clear and given up the life. Ever since then, he had traveled the earth, helping out when and where he could.
This night, he was going to Miami, where he would chill out for a few days before moving on, helping out the Free Zone as much as he could.
"Ow, motherfucker!" Jules shouted out as his cigar burnt down suddenly, burning his hand as it did so. Due to his surprise, Jules lost control of the vehicle and fell off the road and into the ditch by the highway.
"Damn it!" Jules shouted out as he hit the wheel out of anger, before sighing and looking up to the sky, saying, "Why, Lord?"
He sighed, leaning back in his seat for a moment to adjust to his new circumstance. He blinked as a light began to fill his eyes, not sure what it was for a long moment. Finally, sense returned to him as he realized that it must be another car. Jules quickly got up, not without grabbing his trusty .45, and exited the car, heading up to the highway and waving his arms to attract the car's attention.
"HEY!!" Jules shouted, "OVER HERE!!!"
The light did not stop, nor slow down...in fact, Jules could not even hear the roar of a motor.
Realizing very quickly that he was not dealing with a car, he reached back and pulled out his pistol, aiming it into the dark.
"Motherfucker, you'd best stop and think now before you fuck with this negro," Jules shouted, pulling back on the hammer as he did so.
Then, the light reached him.
"My Lord..."