Waking Up The Evil Dead
by Random
***
DISCLAIMER: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and all its characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox and the WB Network. "Evil Dead," "Evil Dead 2," "Army of Darkness" and all their characters and names are property of Sam Raimi and Renaissance Pictures. "Splattermania" written by Ginger, published by Warner Chappel Music Ltd. "Far Beyond Metal" written by Devin Townsend, Gene Hoglan, Jed Simon, Byron Stroud and John Paul Morgan, published by Bucket of Nothing Music.
DESCRIPTION: Buffy/Evil Dead crossover. A mysterious book surfaces in Sunnydale and soon people start getting possessed by an evil force. Now it's up to the gang to get things under control, all with a little help from a certain S-Mart clerk with a chainsaw for a hand.
RATING: R
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was my very first Buffy fanfiction that I wrote way back in 1999. It takes place towards the end of season three. Thanks to Kent for pointing out my glaring omission of the term "boomstick." And thanks to Devin, Ginger and Jason for all the music.
NOTE: This fic's original title was "There's Something Evil In The Parking Lot".
* * *
PART IV
* * *
"Alright," Giles announced placing a piece of paper on the table for the others to see. "This is the definitive translation of the incantations. I wrote them out phonetically so that we won't have any problems with them."
"So, what's the plan then, fearless leader?" Xander asked.
"When we recite the first incantation the evil spirit will manifest itself in the flesh," Giles explained.
"I don't like the sound of that at all," Cordelia muttered.
"It's the only way we can get rid of it," Ash elaborated. "The other spell tears open a rift in space and time. We can only throw that thing into the rift if it is manifesting itself in the flesh. It's not gonna be easy. Once we have cast the first spell it'll probably throw everything it has at us to prevent us from casting the second one. It'll come here and it's not gonna be a picnic. The spirit is hideous and very powerful."
"Oh, goody," Xander said sarcastically. "Sounds like a party. Where's the keg?"
They took a few moments to prepare themselves to cast the spells and for the impending onslaught. Xander gave Cordelia a crash course in using a shotgun, then took a few minutes to make sure his AK-47 was ready to do battle. Ash refueled his chainsaw and loaded his shotgun. Giles got himself a shotgun out of a bag and also found a hand grenade rolling around in it.
In the meantime the deadite locked up in the cell was growing more and more restless. It was slowly pacing back and forth in its confined space, growling and gargling at them. Its physical appearance had further degenerated; its skin had gotten dryer and it was peeling in some spots, revealing the red flesh below. Gone was the red hair that had once been Willow's, replaced by the deadite's frizzy gray mane. Its fingernails had grown long. They looked worn and dirty, yet there was no question that they were also razor sharp. And all along it was staring at the goings on outside of its cell with its all white, pupil less eyes.
"Are we ready?" Giles finally asked the assembled group. They nodded in agreement.
"Xander?"
The voice had come from behind the group. They turned around to find the deadite gone and Willow trapped inside the cage. "Xander, help me!" she pleaded.
"Willow," Xander said as he started for the cage, but Ash held him back. "We've got to help Willow," Xander argued.
"That's not your Willow in there," Ash said.
"Xander, please," Willow begged. "We've been best friends for as long as we can remember. Help me, before that thing comes back. Don't let it take me again."
Xander turned to Giles. "Giles, come on. It's Willow. We've got to help her."
The watcher looked from the girl in the cage, to Xander and then to Ash. Finally he just looked at his feet and shook his head. "Xander, it's a trick. That's not Willow."
Xander started to struggle against Ash's grip and Giles had to help restrain the boy. "No," Xander screamed. "We can't just let her go like this. We have to do something. There must be something we can do." Finally he gave up his struggle and sank to his knees in resignation.
"There is nothing you can do!"
They looked up and saw that the deadite had reverted to its demonic form.
"You cannot win," it snarled. "We will take you all and you will all die!"
"You, bastards!" Xander screamed jumping up. Ash and Giles again had to restrain him, this time from attacking the caged demon.
"Xander, listen to me!" Giles yelled in the boy's ear. "The only way we can beat this thing is if we cast the spells, but we need to stay calm."
Xander gradually stopped struggling, composed himself and nodded gravely.
"Are we ready now?" Giles asked.
"Let's rock," Xander answered.
Giles looked down at his paper and started to read.
* * *
It heard the words of the spell and it knew what they meant. The wait was over, it was time to attack. It swooped down and sped towards the front doors of the school. It crashed through them, tearing the doors off their hinges. It continued down the dark hallway that presented itself in front of it.
It sped past trophy racks, posters and countless lockers on its way. It knew were it had to go, which turns it had to take. The words would take it there.
It saw where it had to go now. At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors. There was a small window in each door through which light spilled into the hallway. It was almost there now. It increased its speed.
It was upon them. It crashed through the library doors.
* * *
All four of them screamed as the library doors exploded inwards. They immediately started firing before they were even able to see what had turned the doors into firewood. At the same time a tremor went through the whole building toppling the table over, breaking the windows and producing a long crack all along the ceiling.
The deadite in the cage was now completely crazed. It repeatedly threw itself against the cage in hope to break free. The shock that the building had suffered had weakened the cage because it was slowly starting to give.
The debris from the broken door and shaken building cleared pretty quickly and then they could see it. It was beyond hideous, beyond any word that the English language (or any other one for that matter) could conjure up. It was like a huge red face that was stuck in the door. It seemed to have no skin, it was just naked flesh. It had sinister yellow eyes, which were bisected by vertical black pupils. Its jaws were huge lined with teeth right out of a Jaws movie.
Ash just gritted his teeth and continued firing, although he had to stop and reload every two shots. The others just seemed to be mesmerized by the horror that was presenting itself in front of them.
"Giles!" Ash was yelling over the unbearable din. "You have to read the other passage!"
Cordelia barely heard the voice but it was enough to make her spin around and look at the watcher. Giles was completely perplexed, just staring at the manifestation of the evil spirit with his mouth open. His gun and the paper with the incantation were hanging limply by his side. Cordelia was about to grab him and try to bring him back to reality when she noticed something creeping in through the broken windows. They were branches from the trees outside, deformed into grotesque hands, and they were coming for Giles. She quickly grabbed an axe off the floor by the table, pushed Giles out of the way and started hacking away at the wooden digits.
Cordelia crashing by him was enough to bring Giles back to the here and now. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and took in the situation unfolding before him. Ash and Xander were still firing at the face peering in through the doors with complete abandon, although it only seemed to do very limited damage. Cordelia was behind him, fighting off tree branches with an axe. And the deadite was still throwing itself against the cage and it was clear that the cage had just about had enough.
With a loud crash the cage gave way and the deadite toppled out and came to rest against the stairs leading up to the stacks.
"Oh, shit," Xander muttered. "Like we didn't have enough problems already."
Giles quickly thrust the paper with the spells into Xander's hand. "Read the incantation," he screamed at him, trying to make himself audible over all the noise. "I'll take care of the deadite."
And with that Giles ran for the deadite making sure that his gun was ready to fire. The deadite had obviously been winded by the raw force it had required to escape its cell and was still lying on the stairs trying to sort itself out. Giles was starting to formulate a plan. He had to keep the deadite away so it wouldn't interfere with the others casting the spell. The best course of action probably was to try and get the demon into the stacks, so it would be out of the way. He ran up the stairs past the deadite and waited on top.
"Hey," he yelled down getting the deadite's attention. "Why don't you come and swallow my soul?"
The deadite picked itself up off the floor and glared at Giles with its white eyes. It was bleeding out of several wounds it had probably inflicted on itself.
Giles started backing away into the stacks as the deadite ascended the steps to get to him. "That's right," he taunted the demon. "Come get me, you ugly piece of crap. Come here!"
It was working. The deadite was following Giles deeper and deeper into the stacks. He fired his shotgun once into the demon's chest. It shook on impact but Giles knew that his gun would only slow the deadite down. He hoped that it would buy him enough time for Xander to cast the spell to open the rift in time and space.
* * *
Things weren't going too good in the library's main room. Ash had taken Xander's AK-47 while Xander was staring at the piece of paper with the spell, trying to make out Giles' handwriting. The horrible calligraphy and the fact that he didn't recognize any of the words was making the seemingly easy task of reading a few passages out loud rather hard.
Xander spun around when he heard a scream from behind him. One of the hands that Cordelia had been so valiantly fighting off had finally managed to grab her and wrap her up in its wooden fingers. Xander quickly thrust the piece of paper in his pocket, grabbed the axe that Cordelia had dropped and started hacking away at the wrist of the giant hand. Cordelia screamed anew as the hand started slowly carrying her towards the entrance of the library where the evil spirit's grotesque face was leering.
When Ash noticed the goings on he stopped firing and screamed at Xander. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Read the spell and get rid of this thing!"
"I'm not going to let it take her," Xander yelled back.
Ash knew that Xander was not going to stop and read the spell as long as the monster had Cordelia. He quickly slung his gun onto his back, pulled the rip chord of his chainsaw, revved it up and ran right for the face in the doorway. When he buried the saw's blade deep in the monster's face, it screamed in agony and dropped Cordelia, bringing both its wooden hands around to deal with Ash.
* * *
Deep in the stacks the deadite was repeatedly banging Giles' head against a shelf emptied by the literary air raid earlier. Then it held him up and savagely kicked the watcher in the ribs, audibly snapping two of them. Giles was sent sprawling to the floor. He quickly shuffled his feet to slide himself along the floor and get some more distance between himself and the deadite.
The fight was not going good for Giles. He had lost his shotgun, which was out of ammunition anyway, and the pain from the beating he had suffered at the hands of the deadite was threatening to make him lose consciousness. He reached a hand into his coat to feel his broken ribs but instead found something else that he had completely forgotten about. He wrapped his fingers around the cold metallic object in his breast pocket and formulated a new plan.
The deadite saw Giles using his legs to slide himself along the floor away from his attacker. It slowly followed him along long shelves filled with old musty books.
Giles kept going watching the demon follow him patiently. It seemed to know that eventually he would run out of room. He knew where he was heading, a cozy cul-de-sac on the other side of the stacks, far from where he hoped Xander, Cordelia and Ash were taking care of the evil spirit.
* * *
Ash saw the wooden hands closing in on him as he was holding the chainsaw to the monster's face.
"You got your girlfriend back," he yelled to Xander, "now read the damn spell!"
After helping Cordelia to her feet Xander started fishing around his pockets for the piece of paper. He found it and was about to hand it to Cordelia when he noticed that she was staring blankly at the face in the door. He quickly grabbed her and spun her around, away from the entrance.
"Don't look at it," he shouted as he handed her the piece of paper. "You're better with Giles' handwriting. Read the spell."
"Oh, yeah," she retorted. "Put all the pressure on me!"
She took a quick look at the paper and then started reading the incantation aloud.
* * *
Giles was backed up against a tall bookrack with the deadite looming over him. There was nowhere for him to go, the only exit was blocked by the demon in front of him. Everything was going according to his plan.
The deadite closed in on Giles who seemed to be cowering in the floor.
"You shall die," the demon snarled.
It was distracted when a small metallic object flew past its head and it tried to find where it had fallen before looking back at Giles, who now was wearing a smug grin.
"Hey," Giles spat. "What do you do when a blonde throws a pin at you?"
The deadite was caught off guard by that question and just stared blankly at Giles.
"Run like hell," Giles said, answering his own question. "Because she's got a hand grenade in her mouth."
With a weak grin Giles slowly raised his right hand showing the deadite the grenade that he was holding.
* * *
Ash was trying to free himself from the wooden hand that was holding him yelling a string of obscenities that would have made the more callous members of the local truck driver's union blush. Cordelia was reading the spell when a loud explosion from the stacks rocked the building.
It seemed to startle everyone enough for Ash to free himself. He backed away from the hand wielding his chainsaw in front of him. Xander urged Cordelia to continue the spell and by the time Ash had caught up with them she was done.
A strong wind moved through the library blowing everything towards the door where the face of the evil spirit was screaming.
"We have to get out the back door," Ash called and they started moving towards the stacks.
Just before they disappeared into the stacks Xander took a quick look back and saw the face fall away from the doorway. But what lay beyond were not the halls of Sunnydale High School but a dark expanse of nothingness. He could hear the spirit scream as it fell away into the emptiness.
* * *
Cordelia, Xander and Ash stood quietly before the enormous crater that had once been Sunnydale High School. The whole building was gone leaving only a big hole in its place. A few tubes that before had been connected to what had been the school's plumbing stuck out of the walls of the crater spilling water into the hole turning the floor of it into mud.
The sun was slowly rising in the east bathing Sunnydale in the soft colors of dawn.
Ash took a quick look at his watch and cursed under his breath. "I've got to be at work in two hours and I'll have to explain all the missing merchandise," he muttered and ran off down the street, his chainsaw still attached to his right arm.
Cordelia and Xander looked at each other for a brief moment then turned back to the crater that had been their school.
"So," Xander said finally. "Does this mean we graduated?"
"I don't know," Cordelia replied uncertainly. "I think so. Principal Snyder is going to be livid"
They looked on in silence again for another moment or two.
"They're gone," Cordelia suddenly blurted. "My brand new shoes. Gone. They cost a fortune."
"Yeah," Xander nodded. "I had a candy bar in my locker that I was saving for lunch today. All gone."
They held a moment of silence for their dearly departed worldly possessions.
"I'm starved," Xander finally said. "You fancy some breakfast?"
Cordelia eyed him suspiciously. "You buying?"
"Of course I'm buying," Xander laughed.
Cordelia's face split into a warm smile. "I'd love some breakfast then."
And so they walked off, arm in arm, away from the crater that marked the spot where once Sunnydale High School had terrorized the teenage population of Sunnydale, and into the warm glow of the sunrise.
THE END
