Buffy vs. the Evil Dead
by Demon-Fighter Ash
Chapter 2: Dead of Night
1
"We are the spirits of the Necronomicon," Willow said in a growling echoing voice that seemed neither male nor female, just demonic, her body twisting and flailing like a puppet as she floated above the living room and stared down at the stunned group with her blind white eyes, "the things that were and shall soon be once more. Why did you come to this place? Already your precious Willow's soul belongs to us!"
The flapping wraith suddenly swept downward, her shoes brushing the floor as she glided through the cabin toward Dawn, writhing snake-like fingers outstretched. Buffy jumped up from the floor and darted across the room toward her friend, grabbing her around the shoulders from behind and trying to knock her down.
"Not good enough," the thing giggled as it twisted its head around its shoulders, its neck cracking as its head swivelled all the way around to face her, "you'll have to do better than that, Buffy."
It quickly snapped its arms outward, breaking her hold, and grabbed her neck in one hand, lifting her up from the ground. Buffy looked down into Willow's hideously distorted face and suddenly felt herself flying back through the air, the living room wall slamming into her back. She lifted herself onto her hands and knees, shaking her head in disbelief. Willow was never this strong--even vampires and demons weren't this strong.
She'd expected the demon to come charging at her, but instead she saw it turning slowly around, its back toward her as it looked at Dawn. Her fingernails scraped against the floorboards as she watched it stalking toward its prey, its shoes clicking across the floor as it cornered the petrified young girl.
"Come here, Dawnie," its giggling voice called out mockingly, "it's just good old Willow..."
A black-leather blur flew across the room and Buffy saw Spike tackle Willow and knock her to the floor; the possessed girl kicked Spike away and he rolled across the carpet, grabbing the shotgun in one hand as the demon hovered back onto its feet.
"No," Buffy screamed out, "that's still Willow!"
Spike jumped back to his feet as the creature rushed forward and he flipped the gun around, knocking her across the cheek with the handle, then flinching as the thing calmly twisted its hideous face back toward him.
"Come on Willow," he said under his breath, "snap out of it!"
She simply cocked her head at him with a giggle, her blind white eyes staring into his for a moment, then she raised her hand, her fingernails twisted into thick claws. Spike jerked away as she slashed forward, then cried out in pain as her nails tore through his left cheek, leaving deep gouging cuts along the side of his face.
"Alright then," he groaned as blood dribbled along his face and chin, "we'll do it your way."
He slammed the butt of the shotgun into her chin, knocking her head back, and swung the barrel into her ribs. Buffy lifted up from the ground and whirled toward the possessed girl as she flew back up into the air, leaping up and jump-kicking the thing back onto the ground as Giles and Xander yanked the cellar door open.
"Over here," Xander shouted.
Buffy nodded and began kicking the growling creature backward, matching each of its charges with another kick or punch, forcing it steadily backward through the room until it finally stood on the edge of the open trap-door; it snarled, its dry mummified skin cracking as its face contorted with rage, and Buffy jumped up, twisting through the air as she jump-kicked it back one last step, sending it tumbling down the basement steps. Xander slammed the door shut and he and Giles quickly began fastening the chains over the planks, padlocking the cellar shut. The monster pushed and beat at the door for a few moments, then the room slowly subsided into dead silence.
2
"Last night Henrietta tried to," the professor's recorded voice paused for a moment, "kill me. I know now that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of bodily dismemberment."
"Giles," Buffy demanded as she collapsed onto the couch, "just tell me exactly what the spell he recorded did. What is it we're up against?"
"I'm still not completely sure," he answered as he paused the tape and wiped his glasses, "but I believe it awakened the spirits of the book and gave them license to possess this forest...and every living thing in it."
"In other words," Xander said glumly, "us."
"These spirits usually lie dormant within the forests and dark bowers of man's domain," Giles rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on, "but they're never truly dead. The book is said to have the power to awaken them and if the person who awakens them doesn't know how to control them...then..."
"Okay," Buffy asked anxiously, "so how do we control them?"
"You can't," Anya answered impatiently as she paced nervously in front of the fireplace, "that's the whole point of it. That book was never meant for the living and it just shows how suicidally dumb people are that you keep on digging that thing up and trying to translate it!"
"You've seen this before," Xander asked gently, "haven't you?"
"Just once," she answered, staring at the floor as she continued to pace, "but it was enough. I've been trying to forget about it ever since."
"When," Giles asked quicky, "what happened?"
"It was a German village along the Rhine, in the Black Forest," Anya whispered as she sat onto the couch, gripping her knees tightly, "there are creatures that bring death and chaos, that people spend their lives afraid of. You call them demons," she looked up at the group, "well this is what demons spend their lives afraid of."
"Go on."
"It was 970 AD. They found the book buried beneath a cathedral. The bishop, he thought...I don't know what he thought, but he tried reading some of the passages. It began that night. The forest changed, all the animals vanished and the trails leading out of the village just disappeared. Then people started being possessed. It came out of the woods and started infecting people, changing them one by one...it turned them into deadites."
"What's a deadite," Dawn asked, "sounds like a Grateful Dead fanatic."
"It's what people become when they... when they change. Like that," she gestured toward the trap-door, then stared into the fire as she began again, "it didn't matter how many of them the villagers killed, it just kept taking over more and more of them. In a few hours it'd changed over half the village. It even got into the trees."
"So it was over fast," Spike asked as he glanced out the window and turned back toward the room, holding a damp folded washcloth against his gouged cheek.
"No," Anya answered, a haunted look in her eyes as she spoke softly, "it wasn't over fast. They played with the survivors, taunting them, trying to break them, to drive them insane or make them kill themselves. It could have been over in minutes, but it wanted to make them suffer. The night...the night lasted for days..."
"The night lasted," Giles started to ask, confused, then shook his head, "I've never read about anything like this."
"You wouldn't have," she said, shrugging, "there's never been anybody left to tell it."
"Oh," Giles muttered in muted surprise, "well then...please, continue."
"When the morning came, everyone was dead. The forest had swallowed up the whole town. It was like the village had never even existed. The only one who knew what'd happened was me."
"Where were you," Dawn asked, biting her lip nervously.
"I was hiding in the church rafters," Anya answered, "this thing was way out of my league."
"So where are these demons," Buffy asked, frustrated, "why haven't we seen any of them? I mean, we've seen evil trees and we saw Willow, and we saw that thing outside, but we haven't seen them. We find them, I kick demon-butt, we go home. Good plan?"
"It's not that simple," Giles answered after a moment of silence, "their bodies died thousands of years ago, they've already been killed. The recording awakened bodiless spirits and essentially gave them permission to use our bodies instead. They really," he paused, rubbing the back of his neck, "don't have butts to kick."
"And it's worse than that," Anya replied, "when the book summons them, it leaves a kind of window open between worlds. The longer this goes on, the more like their world this forest will get. It starts with the trees, but it'll get worse...by the time the village was destroyed, reality and nightmares had become the same thing."
"But what do they want," Tara asked, "how do we stop them?"
"According to Kandarian legends, they want to live again, to bring the age of animals to an end and make the world the way it was before," Giles paused, "when they ruled over it. Right now only their spirits are awakened, and they're confined to this forest, for this one night. They can only regain their bodies and truly return to our world during specific celestial alignments which unlock the gate between the two worlds...alignments that only occur once every three thousand years."
"And let me guess," Buffy sighed, "tonight just happens to be their lucky night."
"Actually," Giles said, adjusting his glasses, "it's not. The last alignment was in the year 730 AD and there won't be another one for another two thousand years or so."
"That's a switch," Buffy said, blinking with confusion, "a once-in-a- millennium apocalypse and we don't have anything to do with it. So if they can't come back as flesh, what is it they want?"
"They want us dead," Anya answered impatiently, "don't any of you get it? They hate living things. We woke them up and now they want to kill us. As soon as we're all dead, everything'll turn back to normal. Except we'll be dead. Have I mentioned the part about us being dead yet?"
"Great," Xander said loudly, exasperated and frightened, "so we have to die to get them to leave?"
"But there is one legend," Giles said as he started flipping through the professor's spiral-notebook, "of a warrior from the sky who defeated the evil at Kandar in 1300 AD. The Book of the Dead foretold his coming and he was allegedly the one who buried the book in the vault."
"Maybe we can summon this warrior," Tara asked, "with some sort of spell?"
"I don't think so," Giles answered, shaking his head with dismay, "all the notes seem to indicate that this 'hero from the sky' was human. Whoever he was, he lived and died centuries ago."
"Or maybe," Xander started, "he was just some modern guy who went back in time, smashed a few deadite skulls, partied with some medieval babes and then came back once he was done," he glanced around as everyone else stared speechlessly at him, "alright, that was dumb, even I admit it."
"But if he was human and he beat them," Buffy said, "then they've gotta have some weakness, something we've missed. Assuming nobody drops from the sky, what else do we have?"
"There's probably a fairly decent chainsaw out in that workshed," Spike said as he walked across the living room, and he suddenly collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. Buffy rose from the couch and grabbed Dawn as the younger girl tried to rush to him. He rolled over onto his back, black spidery lines twisting and spreading beneath his skin, erupting from the gashes on his cheek and writhing like serpents throughout his face.
"Spike," Dawn screamed out.
"Xander, get the shotgun," Buffy called out across the room, "we may have to..."
"No," Spike groaned, his voice still human as he staggered onto his feet, still clutching his stomach, "I'm alright, I think," he took a few steps forward and fell down again, catching himself on the arm of the sofa as Buffy backed away from him, still holding Dawn by the wrist.
"Are you sure," she asked, and gave a sharp sudden gasp as he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. His flesh had gone even more white than it'd been before and his eyes had faded into clear white orbs staring out at her. For the first time she truly realized she was looking at a walking, speaking corpse and she took another step back, tightening her grip on Dawn's wrist as she began to reach for the axe.
"I think so," he groaned, his voice still normal despite his grotesque features, "I feel them inside me, but they can't get a grip on me, they keep slipping," he managed a grin through a sudden burst of pain, "I think they're looking for my soul."
She nodded slowly and began to let go of the axe, "can you fight them?"
Spike smiled weakly and managed to stand up straight, his face pale and slightly shrivelled, his eyes blank white balls deep within purple hollows, and answered, "yeah, I think so; they're confused, they can't quite get a hold of me. I might not look pretty, but I'll be okay."
A harsh rasping voice answered him from the fireplace.
"You'll be dead!"
Everybody suddenly turned back toward the fireplace and the cracked scratchy voice that had answered Spike, seeing nothing but flickering shadows and flames as Anya rolled back from the fireplace with a small panicked shriek. Something snorted within the darkness above the fire and Buffy glanced upward, groaning in horror at the thing staring down from the wall at them.
The mounted deer's head had changed, the face shrivelled into a flesh- draped skull, the black marbles set in its sockets melting into blank white eyes staring blindly at them as the head yanked left and right against the wall, its neck cracking and popping loudly as it looked about the room at each of them, its snout twisted into a grin.
"We'll peel your soulless husk," it cackled to Spike before turning its dead gaze to the rest of them, "and then we'll feast on the souls of your friends," its words dying away into mad wheezing laughter. The group stared up at the cackling, bellowing stuffed head as it laughed and twisted its neck, looking down from its mounted board as it snorted and howled at them, its snout open and its mouth gaping with shrieks of hacking laughter.
The cold steel twin barrels of a shotgun suddenly pressed up against the undead thing's chin and the deer's eyes rolled down to see Spike standing below it, his own blank white eyes meeting it as he nodded to the thing.
"Feast on this."
He pulled the trigger and the deer's head exploded in a shower of red and black juices, quivering bits of flesh and pulsing half-crawling organs raining down into the room, covering the group and splattering across the floorboards. Dawn suddenly tore away from Buffy's grip and ran into the bathroom, groaning and coughing as she threw up. The rest of the group sank silently into their seats, staring down at the floor as Spike grabbed the blood-drenched mounted neck and, leaning through the living-room window, hurled it out into the darkness.
3
Mists rolled through the dead trees and around the cabin in a rushing torrent, engulfing the clearing around the cabin in a thick ghostly tide of fog as a howling wind battered the windows and rattled the shingles, as though it were trying to rip the cabin from the ground like a weed. Within the cabin, the group sat silently around the fireplace and glanced furtively at the cellar door. After several silent, motionless minutes Xander cleared his throat.
"I don't get it," he said, "that thing was stuffed. How could it have all that...in it?"
Nobody answered him. Giles finally glanced up and looked slowly around at the rest of them.
"The spirits are changing things, physically. The woods, the trees, anything they possess--they're actually mutating the structure of whatever they inhabit. The longer this goes on, the more they'll change whatever they're possessing into...whatever it is they were when they were alive."
"That means I'm being changed too," Spike muttered softly, looking into the mirror at his bone-white face, cracked black veins and blind white eyes, shaking his head, "from the inside out."
"And Willow too," Tara said with a nod, tears in her eyes, "it sounds like almost disease."
"And the longer it goes on," Giles answered, "the harder it'll be to change things back.
"Isn't there any way to cure them," Dawn asked.
"Oh that's easy," Anya called out hopefully from the fireplace, "you chop them up. And then you keep chopping them up into little bits so they won't have anything to possess. That always cures them."
"That's not an option," Buffy said firmly, her voice growing louder, "we are not going to kill Willow, do you hear me? We are NOT killing anybody, we're going to find some other way to fix this."
"That's what the villagers said too," Anya sighed with frustration, "at first."
She suddenly whirled away from the group and sat down by the fireplace. Xander shrugged apologetically to the rest of the group, lost for words, and sat down beside her, reaching his arm around her as she fidgeted.
"She might be right, slayer," Spike said reluctantly. She suddenly looked up at him.
"What are you talking about?"
"When we were fighting Willow," he said slowly, "I felt fine. The chip didn't go off once."
"Maybe the chip just got confused," she countered desperately, "with all that fighting, and people being thrown around maybe it just," she sighed and shook her head weakly, "you said this thing controls the forest," she asked, turning to Giles, "but what if we got Willow out of the forest? Wouldn't it still be stuck here?"
"In theory, yes," he answered, "but you saw what happened when we drove to the bridge. You'd have to get through the trees, and then there's that...thing...roaming around out there."
"Spike," Buffy turned toward the vampire as he stared out the window at the creaking, leafless forest and the vague shapeless shadows twisting between the trees in the distance, "could you make it out? Look for some other way around the bridge and come back for us when you've found something?"
"Wait a minute," Xander shouted as he stood up, "you're trusting HIM to come back for US?!"
"No she's not," Spike growled, then looked over at Buffy, "because I'm not going out there."
"Why not," she demanded, "we know they can't possess you!"
"Look out the window, slayer," he answered, glancing out himself as she looked out into the darkness, at the swaying tree branches, "that whole forest is one great big wooden stake with my name on it. They might not be able to possess me, but if they want they can make damn sure I don't come back to help the lot of you."
"Yeah, I guess so," she answered in a disappointed, half-apologetic tone, "what about sunrise?"
"That might work," Giles answered, his voice rising with hope for the first time, "these spirits are only active at night, they become dormant during the day. If we can just make it until morning..."
"Giles," Anya interrupted, her voice worried but not at all surprised, "look at the clock..."
Giles looked up and Buffy looked up too as she heard a low despairing groan escape his lips. The antique pendulum clock hanging on the wall had stopped ticking and, as she watched it now, the black arrow-tipped hands began to spin backward, counting down through the hours until finally it began to chime. She closed her eyes and listened to the bells, counting each one, feeling her knees wobble beneath her. Six chimes. Just one hour after sunset. A guttural cackling voice began to laugh wildly at them from within the locked cellar.
"I told you," Anya muttered under her breath, "the night lasted for days."
"So where's this book," Buffy complained, "if that's what's causing all this, where is it? Why haven't we seen it? Bound in skin, written in blood, shouldn't be too hard to miss."
"I think," Xander said reluctantly, "this might be it."
He tossed a charred, blackened lump of burnt paper and leather onto the desk as the others rushed over to see it. Giles gingerly lifted it with two fingers, then grabbed it in both hands and started flipping through the charred pages, trying to make out any of them. He sighed and dropped it back onto the table and Buffy shuddered as, for a moment, she made out the stretched-flat features of a human face beneath the blistered leather cover.
"I found it in the fireplace, before I started the fire," Xander said as Giles shook his head.
"Knowby must've been desperate," Giles said softly, "burning the book was his last recourse."
"Or something else burnt the book," Buffy replied, "to make sure he couldn't send them back."
"You see, this is why I'm against book-burnings," Xander said angrily, "nothing but trouble!"
"At any rate," Giles shook his head, "it's useless to us now."
Something suddenly smashed against the wooden stairs beneath the floorboards. A low distorted growl filled the whole cabin and suddenly rose into a shriek as Buffy jumped up from the couch and grabbed the axe again. The demonic screams rose and fell from beneath the chained cellar- door and, for a moment, the shrieks sounded almost human before fading into monstrous cries.
"Something's happening to her down there," Xander said, rushing to the the trap-door, tensed and ready to fight against whatever came smashing through the padlocked chains.
The shrieks continued, rippling demonic screams merging with a second, familiar voice, and the trap-door rattled and tore at the hinges, finally sinking back into the floor as a ringing silence filled the air.
"Buffy," a weak, gasping voice called from beneath the floorboards.
"Oh my God," Buffy whispered, "Willow?"
"They're gone," Willow groaned from under the trap-door answered, "I got rid of them, but they're coming back. Please let me out, don't let them take me away again."
Buffy looked slowly around at the rest of the group, her eyes glittering with tears. Anya stood watching from the fireplace,arms folded tightly, while Spike stared from the window, his blind white eyes expressionless but his head tilted with confusion.
Xander stood above the trap-door, his face twisted by pain and bewilderment as he looked around as Dawn clung to Giles and stared at the floor. Buffy then looked up to Giles and he looked back at her, his expression firm and unyielding as he simply shook his head.
"No," Buffy answered, her voice choking with tears, "Willow, we can't. We'll find a way to stop them, but you have to stay down there right now. I'm sorry."
"Buffy, please," Willow sobbed, "they're down here, they'll take me away again. Let me come up there, I can help fight them. We'll use magic, a binding spell, or an exorcism. Tara, please help me."
Everyone looked over to Tara, who had made her way to the trap-door and now sat down beside it, her face close to the loose chains. Buffy shook her head frantically to Tara, who stared back up at her and then simply looked back down, brushing the chains lightly with her fingertips as she took a deep breath.
"Willow, we have to keep you down there right now, but it'll be alright."
"Tara, I need you," Willow whimpered, "I'm scared. I can't fight them by myself again, but maybe if we're together we can stop them. You said you loved me, Tara."
Tara sighed deeply and looked back up at the rest of them, whispering "I have to," as she began to pull at the chains, lifting the door a little as she tugged at the padlock. Something suddenly smashed up through the floor and Buffy ran to Tara as a cracked, withered hand clutched at Tara's wrist, its claws gouging deep into her arm as wild demonic laughter echoed from within the cellar, dead white eyes staring out from beneath the trap- door.
"Let me out, Tara," the snarling voice cackled, "we'll cast spells together. Don't you love me?"
Buffy jumped on top of the cellar door and, balancing on one foot, swung her other foot through the crack, knocking back the giggling inhuman face and then stepping down atop the gnarled claw grabbing Tara. The hinges creaked shut and she leaped back up, yanking her foot out of the crack as the planks slammed back into the floor. Buffy hopped back onto the trap door as Giles and Xander rushed forward, fastening the padlock again as the echoing, choking laughs slowly died away below them.
They looked up to see Tara slowly backing away from them, shaking her head in horror and rage as she neared the front door, her hands pressed to her head.
"Tara, it's okay," Buffy tried to reassure her, "we'll still find a way to get Willow back. This doesn't change anything."
"Yes it does," she answered in a low, shuddering whisper, "she's still alive in there and they used her to get to the rest of us. They're taking her from us," a low howling sob escaping her lips. She suddenly turned around and bolted for the door; Giles lunged at her with a cry but, even as Buffy sprinted across the room toward her, Tara had already fled outside, the door slamming shut behind her.
4
It glided through the forest, uprooting trees and ripping through hanging branches and tangled vines as it rushed blindly forward through the darkness. A chorus of chanting, growling voices trailed along its invisible wake, cold dead souls hungering for the warm glow of life streaming from the cabin windows...and one fresh soul standing outside the cabin door, waiting for it as it smashed through the dead forest toward the clearing.
"Come on," Tara screamed into the woods, "you want a witch, I'll give you a witch! COME ON!"
It tumbled down the slopes of the wooded hill and a hollow tree swayed and crashed to the ground as it neared the cabin. It swept beside the walls, a silent scream of pain filling the whirling vortex of its being as a chorus of dead voices twisted and recoiled from the blinding electric lights within the cabin. It rounded the corner and a low rumbling chant rose from within the chaos of its core as it neared its prey.
"Give her back," Tara shouted, before turning around, a look of sudden panic quickly giving way to rage as she saw it gliding over the leaves toward her, "I said GIVE WILLOW BACK..."
5
"Buffy," Giles said, arms spread out over the front door as he blocked it with his body, "you can't break down the door! We have to keep the cabin as secure as possible!"
"Giles," Buffy said slowly, "move or be moved. We lost Willow and we are not losing Tara."
"Breaking that door would be," Giles started, then he suddenly stopped. Behind him the front door creaked on its hinges, slowly opening out into the misty, silent darkness of the woods. He took a step back and grabbed the axe as Buffy slowly stepped out onto the porch, looking around the empty fog-shrouded clearing and past the thick wall of dead swaying trees before finally calling out into the rustling shadows.
"Tara! Are you out there!?"
Giles appeared behind her a second later, gripping the axe firmly in one hand as he adjusted his glasses and stared into the night over her shoulder. Buffy glanced back to him and shook her head softly.
"Did you hear a scream," she asked anxiously.
"No," he said after a moment, looking around at the misty forest, "but she couldn't have gone far. We'll split up and look around the cabin."
Something smashed into Buffy's forehead and she dropped to her knees, her head throbbing in pain and a thick red film covering her eyes. Something else slammed into her gut and she screamed out in pain as the splintered floor of the porch bashed her in the face. She felt the air rustle over her back and instinctively rolled sideways as something smashed onto the ground, barely missing her spine. She opened her eyes and looked around.
A demon had appeared on the porch and had now turned its face to Giles, its hair bleached white, its bare arms shrivelled and skeletal as it grabbed his chin with one hand and lifted him up against the door, hissing at him as it raised its claw-tipped talons toward his face.
She instantly leaped upward, landing on her feet, and swung around, kicking the thing in the head and knocking it off the porch. It shook its dried tangled hair and looked up, a mocking smile crossing its hideously familiar face as the rest of the group ran to the door.
"Oh my god," Buffy whispered to herself, then aloud, "Giles, get everyone inside now."
"Buffy," Dawn wailed from the open door, "that's Tara! Don't hurt her!"
Buffy turned her head back toward the door, calling back, "get inside NOW," and then flew against one of the log beams of the porch as the deadite's fist slammed into her gut again. She tumbled forward onto her hands and knees and coughed up a sticky red fluid, then lifted her face as the grotesque walking corpse twisted lightly through the air like a dancer, somersaulting forward and kicking Buffy back against the wall as it landed on its feet.
"It's just me Buffy," the dead face whispered in Buffy's ear in Tara's soothing voice, its eyes blank white orbs staring into her own eyes, before slamming its fist into her stomach, its other hand gripping the back of her neck. Its voice suddenly changed as it spoke again, a low growling snarl seeming to erupt from a demonic choir of damned souls rather than a single mouth, "it's just Tara. You wouldn't hurt me, what would Willow think?"
"No," Buffy groaned, blood trailing down the corner of her mouth as she lifted her head, "you're not Tara," and she slammed her fist into the monstrous visage, knocking it back from the porch and standing up as it staggered and swayed on its feet, "now let Tara go or you won't even have a finger left to possess when I'm through."
The thing looked up at Buffy, smooth white eyes wide, and a high pitched girlish giggle escaped its cracked lips as it knelt to the ground, picking up a nearby shovel, "Tara's with us now, burning in Hell with her lover!"
"Then you'd better hope they saved you a seat," Buffy snarled and she somersaulted forward, bouncing from one hand to the next as she flipped toward the grinning undead creature, smashing the undead thing across the chin and knocking it backward into the mist, the shovel dropping onto the ground as it landed on its back.
It growled furiously and leapt up toward Buffy, its long flailing hair and thick sweater a mocking reminder of who it used to be. Buffy stood frozen for a moment, her blood chilling as she recognized the sweater and recognized the girl attacking her, trying to shake off the sudden panicking guilt engulfing her--and then she tumbled backward onto the ground as the cackling demon wearing Tara's clothes knocked her onto her stomach and flew upward into the mist. She rolled onto her stomach, coughing up blood and looking frantically about the empty hollow.
"Soon you'll be just like me," a tittering inhuman voice laughed from the darkness above her, "and who'll protect Dawn when her big sister's the one trying to kill her?"
Buffy closed her eyes as she listened to the voice, gauging its direction, then stretched out one hand and grabbed the shovel, swinging up as the creature flew down from the mists. The shovel smashed into its side and it slammed onto the ground, howling in pain as it rolled onto its back to see Buffy standing over it, shovel tightly gripped in both hands.
She swung the shovel down, ramming the flat end of the blade into the body again and again, knocking its head left and right before twirling the shovel in her palm and beating it across the torso with the handle, ignoring the thing's familiar voice, ignoring its cries and pleas as she swung the stick down again and again . A lifetime seemed to pass before she finally sank onto her knees, the shovel dropping from her blistered hands, her face covered with sweat and blood, beside the motionless, grotesquely deformed body.
"Buffy," Dawn said in a hushed terrified whisper after a moment, and she looked up to see her younger sister, Xander, Anya, Giles and Spike still standing at the front door, staring at her. She looked down from them to the still twitching body and her stomach twisted within her as she recognized her friend's bruised corpse, her long blonde hair strewn with leaves, her smooth pale skin caked with dirt and blood. She closed her eyes and slowly, carefully spoke each word as she braced her palms against her thighs and pushed herself back onto her feet.
"Go inside. I'll take care of this. Don't argue, just go."
"Buffy," Giles asked, "how?"
She looked back up to meet their eyes and answered with one word.
"Workshed."
by Demon-Fighter Ash
Chapter 2: Dead of Night
1
"We are the spirits of the Necronomicon," Willow said in a growling echoing voice that seemed neither male nor female, just demonic, her body twisting and flailing like a puppet as she floated above the living room and stared down at the stunned group with her blind white eyes, "the things that were and shall soon be once more. Why did you come to this place? Already your precious Willow's soul belongs to us!"
The flapping wraith suddenly swept downward, her shoes brushing the floor as she glided through the cabin toward Dawn, writhing snake-like fingers outstretched. Buffy jumped up from the floor and darted across the room toward her friend, grabbing her around the shoulders from behind and trying to knock her down.
"Not good enough," the thing giggled as it twisted its head around its shoulders, its neck cracking as its head swivelled all the way around to face her, "you'll have to do better than that, Buffy."
It quickly snapped its arms outward, breaking her hold, and grabbed her neck in one hand, lifting her up from the ground. Buffy looked down into Willow's hideously distorted face and suddenly felt herself flying back through the air, the living room wall slamming into her back. She lifted herself onto her hands and knees, shaking her head in disbelief. Willow was never this strong--even vampires and demons weren't this strong.
She'd expected the demon to come charging at her, but instead she saw it turning slowly around, its back toward her as it looked at Dawn. Her fingernails scraped against the floorboards as she watched it stalking toward its prey, its shoes clicking across the floor as it cornered the petrified young girl.
"Come here, Dawnie," its giggling voice called out mockingly, "it's just good old Willow..."
A black-leather blur flew across the room and Buffy saw Spike tackle Willow and knock her to the floor; the possessed girl kicked Spike away and he rolled across the carpet, grabbing the shotgun in one hand as the demon hovered back onto its feet.
"No," Buffy screamed out, "that's still Willow!"
Spike jumped back to his feet as the creature rushed forward and he flipped the gun around, knocking her across the cheek with the handle, then flinching as the thing calmly twisted its hideous face back toward him.
"Come on Willow," he said under his breath, "snap out of it!"
She simply cocked her head at him with a giggle, her blind white eyes staring into his for a moment, then she raised her hand, her fingernails twisted into thick claws. Spike jerked away as she slashed forward, then cried out in pain as her nails tore through his left cheek, leaving deep gouging cuts along the side of his face.
"Alright then," he groaned as blood dribbled along his face and chin, "we'll do it your way."
He slammed the butt of the shotgun into her chin, knocking her head back, and swung the barrel into her ribs. Buffy lifted up from the ground and whirled toward the possessed girl as she flew back up into the air, leaping up and jump-kicking the thing back onto the ground as Giles and Xander yanked the cellar door open.
"Over here," Xander shouted.
Buffy nodded and began kicking the growling creature backward, matching each of its charges with another kick or punch, forcing it steadily backward through the room until it finally stood on the edge of the open trap-door; it snarled, its dry mummified skin cracking as its face contorted with rage, and Buffy jumped up, twisting through the air as she jump-kicked it back one last step, sending it tumbling down the basement steps. Xander slammed the door shut and he and Giles quickly began fastening the chains over the planks, padlocking the cellar shut. The monster pushed and beat at the door for a few moments, then the room slowly subsided into dead silence.
2
"Last night Henrietta tried to," the professor's recorded voice paused for a moment, "kill me. I know now that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of bodily dismemberment."
"Giles," Buffy demanded as she collapsed onto the couch, "just tell me exactly what the spell he recorded did. What is it we're up against?"
"I'm still not completely sure," he answered as he paused the tape and wiped his glasses, "but I believe it awakened the spirits of the book and gave them license to possess this forest...and every living thing in it."
"In other words," Xander said glumly, "us."
"These spirits usually lie dormant within the forests and dark bowers of man's domain," Giles rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on, "but they're never truly dead. The book is said to have the power to awaken them and if the person who awakens them doesn't know how to control them...then..."
"Okay," Buffy asked anxiously, "so how do we control them?"
"You can't," Anya answered impatiently as she paced nervously in front of the fireplace, "that's the whole point of it. That book was never meant for the living and it just shows how suicidally dumb people are that you keep on digging that thing up and trying to translate it!"
"You've seen this before," Xander asked gently, "haven't you?"
"Just once," she answered, staring at the floor as she continued to pace, "but it was enough. I've been trying to forget about it ever since."
"When," Giles asked quicky, "what happened?"
"It was a German village along the Rhine, in the Black Forest," Anya whispered as she sat onto the couch, gripping her knees tightly, "there are creatures that bring death and chaos, that people spend their lives afraid of. You call them demons," she looked up at the group, "well this is what demons spend their lives afraid of."
"Go on."
"It was 970 AD. They found the book buried beneath a cathedral. The bishop, he thought...I don't know what he thought, but he tried reading some of the passages. It began that night. The forest changed, all the animals vanished and the trails leading out of the village just disappeared. Then people started being possessed. It came out of the woods and started infecting people, changing them one by one...it turned them into deadites."
"What's a deadite," Dawn asked, "sounds like a Grateful Dead fanatic."
"It's what people become when they... when they change. Like that," she gestured toward the trap-door, then stared into the fire as she began again, "it didn't matter how many of them the villagers killed, it just kept taking over more and more of them. In a few hours it'd changed over half the village. It even got into the trees."
"So it was over fast," Spike asked as he glanced out the window and turned back toward the room, holding a damp folded washcloth against his gouged cheek.
"No," Anya answered, a haunted look in her eyes as she spoke softly, "it wasn't over fast. They played with the survivors, taunting them, trying to break them, to drive them insane or make them kill themselves. It could have been over in minutes, but it wanted to make them suffer. The night...the night lasted for days..."
"The night lasted," Giles started to ask, confused, then shook his head, "I've never read about anything like this."
"You wouldn't have," she said, shrugging, "there's never been anybody left to tell it."
"Oh," Giles muttered in muted surprise, "well then...please, continue."
"When the morning came, everyone was dead. The forest had swallowed up the whole town. It was like the village had never even existed. The only one who knew what'd happened was me."
"Where were you," Dawn asked, biting her lip nervously.
"I was hiding in the church rafters," Anya answered, "this thing was way out of my league."
"So where are these demons," Buffy asked, frustrated, "why haven't we seen any of them? I mean, we've seen evil trees and we saw Willow, and we saw that thing outside, but we haven't seen them. We find them, I kick demon-butt, we go home. Good plan?"
"It's not that simple," Giles answered after a moment of silence, "their bodies died thousands of years ago, they've already been killed. The recording awakened bodiless spirits and essentially gave them permission to use our bodies instead. They really," he paused, rubbing the back of his neck, "don't have butts to kick."
"And it's worse than that," Anya replied, "when the book summons them, it leaves a kind of window open between worlds. The longer this goes on, the more like their world this forest will get. It starts with the trees, but it'll get worse...by the time the village was destroyed, reality and nightmares had become the same thing."
"But what do they want," Tara asked, "how do we stop them?"
"According to Kandarian legends, they want to live again, to bring the age of animals to an end and make the world the way it was before," Giles paused, "when they ruled over it. Right now only their spirits are awakened, and they're confined to this forest, for this one night. They can only regain their bodies and truly return to our world during specific celestial alignments which unlock the gate between the two worlds...alignments that only occur once every three thousand years."
"And let me guess," Buffy sighed, "tonight just happens to be their lucky night."
"Actually," Giles said, adjusting his glasses, "it's not. The last alignment was in the year 730 AD and there won't be another one for another two thousand years or so."
"That's a switch," Buffy said, blinking with confusion, "a once-in-a- millennium apocalypse and we don't have anything to do with it. So if they can't come back as flesh, what is it they want?"
"They want us dead," Anya answered impatiently, "don't any of you get it? They hate living things. We woke them up and now they want to kill us. As soon as we're all dead, everything'll turn back to normal. Except we'll be dead. Have I mentioned the part about us being dead yet?"
"Great," Xander said loudly, exasperated and frightened, "so we have to die to get them to leave?"
"But there is one legend," Giles said as he started flipping through the professor's spiral-notebook, "of a warrior from the sky who defeated the evil at Kandar in 1300 AD. The Book of the Dead foretold his coming and he was allegedly the one who buried the book in the vault."
"Maybe we can summon this warrior," Tara asked, "with some sort of spell?"
"I don't think so," Giles answered, shaking his head with dismay, "all the notes seem to indicate that this 'hero from the sky' was human. Whoever he was, he lived and died centuries ago."
"Or maybe," Xander started, "he was just some modern guy who went back in time, smashed a few deadite skulls, partied with some medieval babes and then came back once he was done," he glanced around as everyone else stared speechlessly at him, "alright, that was dumb, even I admit it."
"But if he was human and he beat them," Buffy said, "then they've gotta have some weakness, something we've missed. Assuming nobody drops from the sky, what else do we have?"
"There's probably a fairly decent chainsaw out in that workshed," Spike said as he walked across the living room, and he suddenly collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. Buffy rose from the couch and grabbed Dawn as the younger girl tried to rush to him. He rolled over onto his back, black spidery lines twisting and spreading beneath his skin, erupting from the gashes on his cheek and writhing like serpents throughout his face.
"Spike," Dawn screamed out.
"Xander, get the shotgun," Buffy called out across the room, "we may have to..."
"No," Spike groaned, his voice still human as he staggered onto his feet, still clutching his stomach, "I'm alright, I think," he took a few steps forward and fell down again, catching himself on the arm of the sofa as Buffy backed away from him, still holding Dawn by the wrist.
"Are you sure," she asked, and gave a sharp sudden gasp as he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. His flesh had gone even more white than it'd been before and his eyes had faded into clear white orbs staring out at her. For the first time she truly realized she was looking at a walking, speaking corpse and she took another step back, tightening her grip on Dawn's wrist as she began to reach for the axe.
"I think so," he groaned, his voice still normal despite his grotesque features, "I feel them inside me, but they can't get a grip on me, they keep slipping," he managed a grin through a sudden burst of pain, "I think they're looking for my soul."
She nodded slowly and began to let go of the axe, "can you fight them?"
Spike smiled weakly and managed to stand up straight, his face pale and slightly shrivelled, his eyes blank white balls deep within purple hollows, and answered, "yeah, I think so; they're confused, they can't quite get a hold of me. I might not look pretty, but I'll be okay."
A harsh rasping voice answered him from the fireplace.
"You'll be dead!"
Everybody suddenly turned back toward the fireplace and the cracked scratchy voice that had answered Spike, seeing nothing but flickering shadows and flames as Anya rolled back from the fireplace with a small panicked shriek. Something snorted within the darkness above the fire and Buffy glanced upward, groaning in horror at the thing staring down from the wall at them.
The mounted deer's head had changed, the face shrivelled into a flesh- draped skull, the black marbles set in its sockets melting into blank white eyes staring blindly at them as the head yanked left and right against the wall, its neck cracking and popping loudly as it looked about the room at each of them, its snout twisted into a grin.
"We'll peel your soulless husk," it cackled to Spike before turning its dead gaze to the rest of them, "and then we'll feast on the souls of your friends," its words dying away into mad wheezing laughter. The group stared up at the cackling, bellowing stuffed head as it laughed and twisted its neck, looking down from its mounted board as it snorted and howled at them, its snout open and its mouth gaping with shrieks of hacking laughter.
The cold steel twin barrels of a shotgun suddenly pressed up against the undead thing's chin and the deer's eyes rolled down to see Spike standing below it, his own blank white eyes meeting it as he nodded to the thing.
"Feast on this."
He pulled the trigger and the deer's head exploded in a shower of red and black juices, quivering bits of flesh and pulsing half-crawling organs raining down into the room, covering the group and splattering across the floorboards. Dawn suddenly tore away from Buffy's grip and ran into the bathroom, groaning and coughing as she threw up. The rest of the group sank silently into their seats, staring down at the floor as Spike grabbed the blood-drenched mounted neck and, leaning through the living-room window, hurled it out into the darkness.
3
Mists rolled through the dead trees and around the cabin in a rushing torrent, engulfing the clearing around the cabin in a thick ghostly tide of fog as a howling wind battered the windows and rattled the shingles, as though it were trying to rip the cabin from the ground like a weed. Within the cabin, the group sat silently around the fireplace and glanced furtively at the cellar door. After several silent, motionless minutes Xander cleared his throat.
"I don't get it," he said, "that thing was stuffed. How could it have all that...in it?"
Nobody answered him. Giles finally glanced up and looked slowly around at the rest of them.
"The spirits are changing things, physically. The woods, the trees, anything they possess--they're actually mutating the structure of whatever they inhabit. The longer this goes on, the more they'll change whatever they're possessing into...whatever it is they were when they were alive."
"That means I'm being changed too," Spike muttered softly, looking into the mirror at his bone-white face, cracked black veins and blind white eyes, shaking his head, "from the inside out."
"And Willow too," Tara said with a nod, tears in her eyes, "it sounds like almost disease."
"And the longer it goes on," Giles answered, "the harder it'll be to change things back.
"Isn't there any way to cure them," Dawn asked.
"Oh that's easy," Anya called out hopefully from the fireplace, "you chop them up. And then you keep chopping them up into little bits so they won't have anything to possess. That always cures them."
"That's not an option," Buffy said firmly, her voice growing louder, "we are not going to kill Willow, do you hear me? We are NOT killing anybody, we're going to find some other way to fix this."
"That's what the villagers said too," Anya sighed with frustration, "at first."
She suddenly whirled away from the group and sat down by the fireplace. Xander shrugged apologetically to the rest of the group, lost for words, and sat down beside her, reaching his arm around her as she fidgeted.
"She might be right, slayer," Spike said reluctantly. She suddenly looked up at him.
"What are you talking about?"
"When we were fighting Willow," he said slowly, "I felt fine. The chip didn't go off once."
"Maybe the chip just got confused," she countered desperately, "with all that fighting, and people being thrown around maybe it just," she sighed and shook her head weakly, "you said this thing controls the forest," she asked, turning to Giles, "but what if we got Willow out of the forest? Wouldn't it still be stuck here?"
"In theory, yes," he answered, "but you saw what happened when we drove to the bridge. You'd have to get through the trees, and then there's that...thing...roaming around out there."
"Spike," Buffy turned toward the vampire as he stared out the window at the creaking, leafless forest and the vague shapeless shadows twisting between the trees in the distance, "could you make it out? Look for some other way around the bridge and come back for us when you've found something?"
"Wait a minute," Xander shouted as he stood up, "you're trusting HIM to come back for US?!"
"No she's not," Spike growled, then looked over at Buffy, "because I'm not going out there."
"Why not," she demanded, "we know they can't possess you!"
"Look out the window, slayer," he answered, glancing out himself as she looked out into the darkness, at the swaying tree branches, "that whole forest is one great big wooden stake with my name on it. They might not be able to possess me, but if they want they can make damn sure I don't come back to help the lot of you."
"Yeah, I guess so," she answered in a disappointed, half-apologetic tone, "what about sunrise?"
"That might work," Giles answered, his voice rising with hope for the first time, "these spirits are only active at night, they become dormant during the day. If we can just make it until morning..."
"Giles," Anya interrupted, her voice worried but not at all surprised, "look at the clock..."
Giles looked up and Buffy looked up too as she heard a low despairing groan escape his lips. The antique pendulum clock hanging on the wall had stopped ticking and, as she watched it now, the black arrow-tipped hands began to spin backward, counting down through the hours until finally it began to chime. She closed her eyes and listened to the bells, counting each one, feeling her knees wobble beneath her. Six chimes. Just one hour after sunset. A guttural cackling voice began to laugh wildly at them from within the locked cellar.
"I told you," Anya muttered under her breath, "the night lasted for days."
"So where's this book," Buffy complained, "if that's what's causing all this, where is it? Why haven't we seen it? Bound in skin, written in blood, shouldn't be too hard to miss."
"I think," Xander said reluctantly, "this might be it."
He tossed a charred, blackened lump of burnt paper and leather onto the desk as the others rushed over to see it. Giles gingerly lifted it with two fingers, then grabbed it in both hands and started flipping through the charred pages, trying to make out any of them. He sighed and dropped it back onto the table and Buffy shuddered as, for a moment, she made out the stretched-flat features of a human face beneath the blistered leather cover.
"I found it in the fireplace, before I started the fire," Xander said as Giles shook his head.
"Knowby must've been desperate," Giles said softly, "burning the book was his last recourse."
"Or something else burnt the book," Buffy replied, "to make sure he couldn't send them back."
"You see, this is why I'm against book-burnings," Xander said angrily, "nothing but trouble!"
"At any rate," Giles shook his head, "it's useless to us now."
Something suddenly smashed against the wooden stairs beneath the floorboards. A low distorted growl filled the whole cabin and suddenly rose into a shriek as Buffy jumped up from the couch and grabbed the axe again. The demonic screams rose and fell from beneath the chained cellar- door and, for a moment, the shrieks sounded almost human before fading into monstrous cries.
"Something's happening to her down there," Xander said, rushing to the the trap-door, tensed and ready to fight against whatever came smashing through the padlocked chains.
The shrieks continued, rippling demonic screams merging with a second, familiar voice, and the trap-door rattled and tore at the hinges, finally sinking back into the floor as a ringing silence filled the air.
"Buffy," a weak, gasping voice called from beneath the floorboards.
"Oh my God," Buffy whispered, "Willow?"
"They're gone," Willow groaned from under the trap-door answered, "I got rid of them, but they're coming back. Please let me out, don't let them take me away again."
Buffy looked slowly around at the rest of the group, her eyes glittering with tears. Anya stood watching from the fireplace,arms folded tightly, while Spike stared from the window, his blind white eyes expressionless but his head tilted with confusion.
Xander stood above the trap-door, his face twisted by pain and bewilderment as he looked around as Dawn clung to Giles and stared at the floor. Buffy then looked up to Giles and he looked back at her, his expression firm and unyielding as he simply shook his head.
"No," Buffy answered, her voice choking with tears, "Willow, we can't. We'll find a way to stop them, but you have to stay down there right now. I'm sorry."
"Buffy, please," Willow sobbed, "they're down here, they'll take me away again. Let me come up there, I can help fight them. We'll use magic, a binding spell, or an exorcism. Tara, please help me."
Everyone looked over to Tara, who had made her way to the trap-door and now sat down beside it, her face close to the loose chains. Buffy shook her head frantically to Tara, who stared back up at her and then simply looked back down, brushing the chains lightly with her fingertips as she took a deep breath.
"Willow, we have to keep you down there right now, but it'll be alright."
"Tara, I need you," Willow whimpered, "I'm scared. I can't fight them by myself again, but maybe if we're together we can stop them. You said you loved me, Tara."
Tara sighed deeply and looked back up at the rest of them, whispering "I have to," as she began to pull at the chains, lifting the door a little as she tugged at the padlock. Something suddenly smashed up through the floor and Buffy ran to Tara as a cracked, withered hand clutched at Tara's wrist, its claws gouging deep into her arm as wild demonic laughter echoed from within the cellar, dead white eyes staring out from beneath the trap- door.
"Let me out, Tara," the snarling voice cackled, "we'll cast spells together. Don't you love me?"
Buffy jumped on top of the cellar door and, balancing on one foot, swung her other foot through the crack, knocking back the giggling inhuman face and then stepping down atop the gnarled claw grabbing Tara. The hinges creaked shut and she leaped back up, yanking her foot out of the crack as the planks slammed back into the floor. Buffy hopped back onto the trap door as Giles and Xander rushed forward, fastening the padlock again as the echoing, choking laughs slowly died away below them.
They looked up to see Tara slowly backing away from them, shaking her head in horror and rage as she neared the front door, her hands pressed to her head.
"Tara, it's okay," Buffy tried to reassure her, "we'll still find a way to get Willow back. This doesn't change anything."
"Yes it does," she answered in a low, shuddering whisper, "she's still alive in there and they used her to get to the rest of us. They're taking her from us," a low howling sob escaping her lips. She suddenly turned around and bolted for the door; Giles lunged at her with a cry but, even as Buffy sprinted across the room toward her, Tara had already fled outside, the door slamming shut behind her.
4
It glided through the forest, uprooting trees and ripping through hanging branches and tangled vines as it rushed blindly forward through the darkness. A chorus of chanting, growling voices trailed along its invisible wake, cold dead souls hungering for the warm glow of life streaming from the cabin windows...and one fresh soul standing outside the cabin door, waiting for it as it smashed through the dead forest toward the clearing.
"Come on," Tara screamed into the woods, "you want a witch, I'll give you a witch! COME ON!"
It tumbled down the slopes of the wooded hill and a hollow tree swayed and crashed to the ground as it neared the cabin. It swept beside the walls, a silent scream of pain filling the whirling vortex of its being as a chorus of dead voices twisted and recoiled from the blinding electric lights within the cabin. It rounded the corner and a low rumbling chant rose from within the chaos of its core as it neared its prey.
"Give her back," Tara shouted, before turning around, a look of sudden panic quickly giving way to rage as she saw it gliding over the leaves toward her, "I said GIVE WILLOW BACK..."
5
"Buffy," Giles said, arms spread out over the front door as he blocked it with his body, "you can't break down the door! We have to keep the cabin as secure as possible!"
"Giles," Buffy said slowly, "move or be moved. We lost Willow and we are not losing Tara."
"Breaking that door would be," Giles started, then he suddenly stopped. Behind him the front door creaked on its hinges, slowly opening out into the misty, silent darkness of the woods. He took a step back and grabbed the axe as Buffy slowly stepped out onto the porch, looking around the empty fog-shrouded clearing and past the thick wall of dead swaying trees before finally calling out into the rustling shadows.
"Tara! Are you out there!?"
Giles appeared behind her a second later, gripping the axe firmly in one hand as he adjusted his glasses and stared into the night over her shoulder. Buffy glanced back to him and shook her head softly.
"Did you hear a scream," she asked anxiously.
"No," he said after a moment, looking around at the misty forest, "but she couldn't have gone far. We'll split up and look around the cabin."
Something smashed into Buffy's forehead and she dropped to her knees, her head throbbing in pain and a thick red film covering her eyes. Something else slammed into her gut and she screamed out in pain as the splintered floor of the porch bashed her in the face. She felt the air rustle over her back and instinctively rolled sideways as something smashed onto the ground, barely missing her spine. She opened her eyes and looked around.
A demon had appeared on the porch and had now turned its face to Giles, its hair bleached white, its bare arms shrivelled and skeletal as it grabbed his chin with one hand and lifted him up against the door, hissing at him as it raised its claw-tipped talons toward his face.
She instantly leaped upward, landing on her feet, and swung around, kicking the thing in the head and knocking it off the porch. It shook its dried tangled hair and looked up, a mocking smile crossing its hideously familiar face as the rest of the group ran to the door.
"Oh my god," Buffy whispered to herself, then aloud, "Giles, get everyone inside now."
"Buffy," Dawn wailed from the open door, "that's Tara! Don't hurt her!"
Buffy turned her head back toward the door, calling back, "get inside NOW," and then flew against one of the log beams of the porch as the deadite's fist slammed into her gut again. She tumbled forward onto her hands and knees and coughed up a sticky red fluid, then lifted her face as the grotesque walking corpse twisted lightly through the air like a dancer, somersaulting forward and kicking Buffy back against the wall as it landed on its feet.
"It's just me Buffy," the dead face whispered in Buffy's ear in Tara's soothing voice, its eyes blank white orbs staring into her own eyes, before slamming its fist into her stomach, its other hand gripping the back of her neck. Its voice suddenly changed as it spoke again, a low growling snarl seeming to erupt from a demonic choir of damned souls rather than a single mouth, "it's just Tara. You wouldn't hurt me, what would Willow think?"
"No," Buffy groaned, blood trailing down the corner of her mouth as she lifted her head, "you're not Tara," and she slammed her fist into the monstrous visage, knocking it back from the porch and standing up as it staggered and swayed on its feet, "now let Tara go or you won't even have a finger left to possess when I'm through."
The thing looked up at Buffy, smooth white eyes wide, and a high pitched girlish giggle escaped its cracked lips as it knelt to the ground, picking up a nearby shovel, "Tara's with us now, burning in Hell with her lover!"
"Then you'd better hope they saved you a seat," Buffy snarled and she somersaulted forward, bouncing from one hand to the next as she flipped toward the grinning undead creature, smashing the undead thing across the chin and knocking it backward into the mist, the shovel dropping onto the ground as it landed on its back.
It growled furiously and leapt up toward Buffy, its long flailing hair and thick sweater a mocking reminder of who it used to be. Buffy stood frozen for a moment, her blood chilling as she recognized the sweater and recognized the girl attacking her, trying to shake off the sudden panicking guilt engulfing her--and then she tumbled backward onto the ground as the cackling demon wearing Tara's clothes knocked her onto her stomach and flew upward into the mist. She rolled onto her stomach, coughing up blood and looking frantically about the empty hollow.
"Soon you'll be just like me," a tittering inhuman voice laughed from the darkness above her, "and who'll protect Dawn when her big sister's the one trying to kill her?"
Buffy closed her eyes as she listened to the voice, gauging its direction, then stretched out one hand and grabbed the shovel, swinging up as the creature flew down from the mists. The shovel smashed into its side and it slammed onto the ground, howling in pain as it rolled onto its back to see Buffy standing over it, shovel tightly gripped in both hands.
She swung the shovel down, ramming the flat end of the blade into the body again and again, knocking its head left and right before twirling the shovel in her palm and beating it across the torso with the handle, ignoring the thing's familiar voice, ignoring its cries and pleas as she swung the stick down again and again . A lifetime seemed to pass before she finally sank onto her knees, the shovel dropping from her blistered hands, her face covered with sweat and blood, beside the motionless, grotesquely deformed body.
"Buffy," Dawn said in a hushed terrified whisper after a moment, and she looked up to see her younger sister, Xander, Anya, Giles and Spike still standing at the front door, staring at her. She looked down from them to the still twitching body and her stomach twisted within her as she recognized her friend's bruised corpse, her long blonde hair strewn with leaves, her smooth pale skin caked with dirt and blood. She closed her eyes and slowly, carefully spoke each word as she braced her palms against her thighs and pushed herself back onto her feet.
"Go inside. I'll take care of this. Don't argue, just go."
"Buffy," Giles asked, "how?"
She looked back up to meet their eyes and answered with one word.
"Workshed."