Candy Mulder....The Vampire Slayer? (1/4)

"I'm so nervous, I totally understand the phrase butterflies in my stomach."
"Well, I'm so nervous I could just vomit."
"Gross! A zit!"
"Does that look like a stretch mark to you?"
I listened to the voices around me, some high-pitched with anxiety, others giddy with expectancy. A flurry of teased hair and multicolored pom-poms, teenaged girls with layers of glittery makeup and floral perfumes, supportive friends and significant others surrounded me. As I remembered it, cheerleader tryouts hadn't been quite so hectic back in D.C. There had been sufficiently less hair and makeup and shrieking. Or maybe because I had been part of it all, the wedding-cake hair, the shiny blush, the giggling.
But here in Sunnydale, California, I was on alien turf. I didn't know anyone's name, and no one knew, or cared to know mine. I was alone. Solitary. I wasn't part of any group, any clique, any comfortable quartet or trio or even a pair. I stretched my legs out and cursed my parents again under my breath.
It was all their fault, of course. *They* decided to move right before my junior year. *They* decided they needed a change, so they transplanted me out of the organism I called my life, and dumped me here. *They* decided Sunnydale was a more productive place to grow up. Sunny-HELL is more like it. Doesn't the sun ever stop shining?
"Candy Mulder." A woman with a pen tucked behind her ear and a clipboard in hand scanned the sea of hopeful faces. "Mulder. Candy."
I waved a purple pom-pom in the air. As I jumped up, a guy in the back called out, "Go girl!"
I turned to glare, but I didn't see anyone who seemed likely. "Ms. Mulder," the woman said, coughing.
"Right," I responded. I jogged to the middle of the space that had been cleared for the tryouts. I stood with my feet together and gritted my teeth. "Ready."
I did the cheer from my old school and hoped for the best. A few girls clapped half-heartedly, but I was busy studying the woman's face. "Nice," was all she said. "Next."
I trodded crestfallen to the locker room. It wasn't that I was overly disappointed at not making the cheerleading squad. It was just that there wasn't much happening in Sunnydale, so I was finding it hard to make friends. I had been hoping that joining the squad would be a first step. Now it seemed like I had to take my first step somewhere else.
A locker slammed behind me. "Nice cheer," someone said.
"Thanks," I answered. I opened a locker and peeked at the speaker in the mirror fastened to the door. She was a curvy blonde with legs that went on forever. She sported a tiny beauty mark on the right side of her chin - or rather, the left, if I was looking in the mirror. Standing next to her, medium height, rust-colored hair and gray eyes, I felt like a munchkin. No wonder I didn't make the squad.
"Your name's Candy?" she continued. She had a Valley Girl-type intonation.
I turned, nodding. I placed my foot on the bench that bisected the aisle formed by the row of lockers. "I'm Barbie," she informed me as I unlaced my sneaker.
Before I could make a Mattel joke, she asked, "You're new here?"
"Just moved out from D.C. this summer."
"What do your parents do?" Barbie inquired.
I threw the removed sneaker into my gym bag. "They're federal agents."
"Oh, really..." Barbie's effervescent quality fizzed a little.
I took off my other shoe, then peeled off my socks. I worked off my shirt as Barbie continued her interrogation. "Are they still?"
"Still what?" I asked. I had taken off my shirt and was scouting around my bag for the old t-shirt of my father's I always wore after cheerleader practice.
"With the government."
"Yup," I managed to say through the fabric of the t-shirt. I stood back and checked my appearance in the mirror.
"What's that on your shirt?"
I turned so Barbie could read the green letters on my black t-shirt. " 'Aliens Make Better Coffee'." she read. Her face was a blank. "I don't get it."
I changed into my shorts, scooped up my gym bag and said, "See ya."

The problem with Sunnydale was, I had yet to meet anyone with more than two cells worth of a brain. Not that I was being stereotypical or anything, but everyone I had met were either airheaded ditzes like Barbie, or surfer dudes who struggled through Remedial Reading. There just wasn't anyone I could connect with on an intellectual level. Sadly for me, my parents had imbued me with the desire to philosophize everything to death - but not many people my age can sit still long enough to talk about why animal testing could be productive to a certain degree, or whether Zippergate was just some Republican scam.
Walking along in the corridors, all I saw were faces devoid of character and empty eyes that stared vacantly ahead. I'd never felt so lonely in my life.
I left the school and entered the sunshiny day outside. Light filled my eyes, and after the dim interior of the gym, it felt as though a sledgehammer had hit me across the face. I closed my eyes momentarily. When I opened them again, I thought I saw a guy gesturing to me out of the corner of my eye.
I turned quickly. He wasn't a figment of my imagination, I was glad to note. But he wasn't exactly a guy...he was more like, well, a teacher. "Uh-oh," I mumbled. Two weeks into school and I was already in trouble. My parents were going to kill me.
I never had a reputation for being a goody two-shoes. At my last school, I accidentally burned down the library after my science fair entry on combustion went haywire. It was an accident, but from the way my parents went on about it, it was like I had planned it or something. Ever since that incident, I've pretty much been on probation. One more serious offense, and I'd probably be sent to some Catholic boarding school.
The teacher walked briskly towards me. He was tall and towered over me. His head was shaped like a potato, with hair, and his eyes stared out a violent, blue-green color. He looked like an older version of a typical nerd, minus glasses. "Ms. Mulder?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. I was going to be calm about this.
"I'd like to speak to you, if you don't mind."
Major warning bells went off in my head. "Do you have a moment?"
I tilted my digital watch up to read the time. "Yeah."
"Wonderful." he said. He really did sound like it was wonderful. "This way, please."
It's never, ever a good sign when a teacher doesn't want to talk in the open. I walked after him thinking how dead I was going to be. He led me back into the school and to a room I'd always thought was the teacher resource room. It turned out to be a huge library, its shelves crammed with books that looked at least a hundred years old. "Here?" I asked, puzzled. I fingered a book laying on the long, curved checkout counter. "Va..."
The teacher snatched the book away before I could finish deciphering the fancy script. He held the book to him like it was his baby and I had been trying to feed it glass. I shifted my gym bag to my other shoulder and folded my arms across my chest. It was obvious this teach had some issues. "Ms. Mulder. Would you care to sit down?" He rounded the checkout counter and sat on a stool.
It's never, ever a good sign when a teacher asks you to sit down. "No, thank you. I'll have to get going soon."
The teacher studied my face a moment. He was freaking me out. "My name is Winford. Thomas Winford."
"Are you one of my teachers?" I asked, trying to place him. "Or my counselor?"
"I..." Winford took a breath. "...am your watcher."
I cocked my head. "Watcher? Is that some new technical term or something?"
Winford was shaking his head. "Don't you know who you are?"
"The last time I looked I was Candy Mulder." I said. Majorly freaking out.
"You," he stood up and pointed at me. "...are the chosen one."
"Huh?"
"You are the vampire slayer."

I must have stood gaping for a long time, because Winford came out from behind the counter and touched my shoulder. "Ms. Mulder?" He looked at me, concerned.
"I..." I blurted out incoherently. I tried to collect my thoughts. "I... I think you're having some kind of a midlife crisis."
I started to back out of the library. "That's it. Your wife left you, you're fed up with your life, you wanna join some kind of a dude ranch, and you feel so trapped, you decided to pick on me. Yeah, that's it. Or, better yet, none of this happened. This...never happened. That's the logical explanation."
Winford shook his head sadly. "Don't shake your head!" I yelled. I was on the verge of hysterics. What was this crazy teacher doing here? What was *I* doing here? Why didn't I just leave? Why was I having a conversation with myself in my head?
Winford took a step towards me. "I know it must be an extraordinary thought. Vampires, in our very mist. And you, the only one with the strength and skill to be sent here to the Hellmouth."
"Okay," I said, trying to take charge of the situation. That's what my mother always does in an argument with my father. "Back up a moment. Slowly. First of all, I have no idea what you're talking about. Second. Well, there isn't going to be a second, coz I'm gone."
I backed up all the way to the library doors and was just about to turn the knob when Winford said, "It's your sacred duty. Why else would you be here?"
There something about his words that made the most insane sense. Why *was* I here? California was definitely not my scene - and neither was it my parents'. Yet, Sunnydale was the one thing they had agreed on, in years of not agreeing on anything, not even what to name me. It did strike me as a little odd. I considered it momentarily, before plunking my gym bag on the counter and walking to a table. "All right, I'm all ears. Tell me about this slayer stuff. I'll decide whether I believe it or not."
"The vampire slayer is a special person. There is only one girl in each generation qualified to fulfill the calling. Only the strongest comes to the Hellmouth." Winford produced an worn, leatherbound book that I lazily leafed through as he spoke.
"The slayer has the strength of her foes, vampires, but it is her sole purpose in life to exterminate them. They are especially abundant here, being as it is the root of all their power."
I turned the dusty pages, perusing the faded words of other watchers. Spidery sketches of previous slayers adorned the pages. Winford droned on. "Vampires do not work alone. Often or not, they hunt in packs, and have human slaves called familiars, who, if they serve their masters well, can be turned into one of the undead."
"Why'd anyone wanna die?" I asked. Not that I was buying any of the stuff. My mother's a doctor, my parents work for the government. I don't go for science fiction much. But, somehow, I had to hear the guy out.
"Ah," Winford replied. "It's no ordinary death. They rise again and live forevermore on the blood of innocent humans. It's a glamourous living, for some."
Very Jerry Springer. "Yeah, well, this is all really interesting, but I gotta go." I walked back to the counter to get my bag.
"Candy, why do you think you stayed and listened to me so long?"
I turned. "Do you always ask open-ended questions?"
Winford raised an eyebrow, and it looked so much like my mother's favorite expression, it was uncanny. Only my mom does it when she hears one of my father's ridiculous theories about Bigfoot or how the government actually assasinated JFK. It's a look of incredulity, disbelief, a look that over the years has taught me never to take people on their word. My mom may be Catholic, but science is her true religion.
But the look Winford was giving me was more an amused look than anything else. Kind of like the way my father mimics my mother after he's told her one of his hackneyed ideas and she's dessimated it with the knife of logic. "The last slayer displayed just the same doubts as you."
"Where's she now?" I asked despite of myself.
"University. Out of state. She and her watcher both left." Winford reached behind the counter, producing a newer, albeit similar, leatherbound book. He handed it to me, but I was reluctant to take it. "You can read up on her, if you wish. It might make you understand more."
"This is all some joke, right? No, wait, it's like one of those cases my parents investigated back in D.C. Weird cases, with wackos like you involved. Thanks, but no thanks." I finally left, feeling more or less relieved.
I ran down the hallway, hoping he wasn't following me. God, what an awful day. I cursed my parents again as I walked home.

My parents were already home by the time I reached our new house. Boxes still littered the first floor, and the house was as yet still sparsely furnished. I climbed over a box labeled 'living room' in my mother's uncommonly neat script (she is a doctor), calling out, "I'm home."
"We're in here. If you can wade through the clutter." came my mother's voice from the direction of the kitchen. She sounded happy and almost girlish.
I found her and my father unpacking dinner plates. My father, practically a head taller, was carefully stowing the good into the uppermost cabinets. He turned when I entered, and gave me a paternal smile, his green eyes appearing gray for a second. "Hi, Sam, wanna give your old parents a hand?"
I grimaced. My parents named me Samara Candace Mulder, after my father's sister, Samantha, who disappeared when my dad was twelve, and the doctor friend of my mother's who delivered me. My mom calls me Samara, my dad calls me Sam, and everyone else since I was six has called me Candy. My teacher had a slight lisp, so when she pronounced my name, it became, "Shamara", and I couldn't stand it, so I asked everyone to call me Candy. It's been that way ever since, except in my house. Which is weird, because when I was born, my parents were torn between naming me Melisse (after my mom's sister Melissa, who died) or Wilhemina, as a tribute to both of my grandfathers, who were named William. How it became Samara Candace, I'll never know, but that's how my parents work. They argue and argue and argue, then they come up with a solution that makes no logical sense whatsoever, but works. See where I'm coming from? Bizzare, weird, freaky household.
I shrugged, then helped my mother unpack plates. "So, how was school?" my father asked. The obligatory question. They take turns asking it.
"Fine," was my obligatory answer. "What'd you guys do?"
My father stopped putting plates away for a second, the exact same time my mother paused slicing through a band of tape on a cardboard box. "Scully?" said my father to my mother. He still calls her by her maiden name, as a form of endearment.
Mom cleared her throat. "I got a position at Sunnydale General."
I almost dropped the plate I was holding. "A hospital? You're gonna practice medicine now?"
"Your father's earned a professorship at UCLA." My mother continued, not noticing my surprise.
"Paranormal psychology," my father supplied, as if I had asked a question.
"But...? How...? What about the Bureau?" I sputtered.
My parents shrugged in unison. "They've closed the X-Files. There's nothing your mother and I can do there anymore. We can't go back into the mainstream." my father answered.
"Or rather, your father can't." Mom smiled. "Besides, we decided that moving out here, we'd make a fresh start. And that meant giving up the FBI."
"But, mom, it's the FBI that brought you and dad together in the first place." I pointed out. There was something I didn't like about this. All this change couldn't be good.
"And it's the FBI that tried to split us apart a million times." my father reminded me.
I tried a different tack. "The X-Files are your life, dad. Mom's too. What about Aunt Samantha? Don't you want to find her?" I knew I was crossing into dangerous territory, but I couldn't help myself. First the move, now this. I couldn't handle it.
"The X-Files took my life, Sam. They were a deadly obsession. They almost killed your mother, this marriage. I want to find my sister, but not if it means sacrificing your mother and you in the process." My father's green eyes glittered in anger.
"Why are you so against this, Samara? We'd thought you'd be happy." My mother's voice, so carefree the moment before, lowered in pain.
"I..." I looked at their faces, and saw how much they loved me. I knew that when you examined it, they *were* doing it for me. It just didn't feel that way. It felt like they were shirking their responsibility - their duty. "I'm sorry."
I struggled between the boxes and reached out to hug them. "I'm sorry mom, dad. This move is just taking a toll on me. So many adjustments."
My mother patted my head. "Don't think we didn't talk this through..." she began.
"To the death, with you especially, mom." I knew how my mother loved rationalization and logical decision-making. My father smiled at me over mom's head.
"...yes. And we wouldn't be doing it if it weren't the best way. We think that this will be good for all of us. We'll get to be here for you more often." Mom tilted my head up and kissed my forehead. "Feel better?"
"Yeah," I replied. Actually, I felt sick to my stomach, thinking about my new responsibility - to rid the world of vampires.