Buffy vs. the Evil Dead
by Demon-Fighter Ash
Chapter 3: Looking-Glass Forest
1
Buffy dropped Tara's body onto a wooden table and looked around at the workshed. Bones dangled from the ceiling and knives, saws and cleavers draped the walls. She shook her head, not daring to wonder what anyone would want with that many blades, and noticed chains hanging from the table. She grabbed each one and stretched them tight across Tara's motionless body, looping them through metal rings set into the edges and clicking padlocks over each ring, the chains digging into Tara's clothes, holding her tight against the table.
Buffy lifted up from the table and, after a moment of looking frantically about the shed, she found what she was looking for--a chainsaw hanging above one of the shelves. She grabbed it and turned it over in her hand, finally finding a pull-string and nervously tugging it. The chainsaw roared to life and she winced as she felt it shaking in her hand, sparks and smoke flying from the spinning blade, the engine rattling for the first time in nearly a decade. She glanced back down to the thing on the table as the clacking motor began to steady.
It was Tara. The long shining blonde hair, the slightly blushing cheeks, the faint down on her slender bare arms--whatever demon had invaded her body had vanished, leaving only her friend, seemingly asleep.
Of course it looks like that, Buffy thought to herself, it thinks I won't kill it if it looks like that.
She closed her eyes and began to lower the chainsaw over the thing's arm, trying to forget what she'd seen, trying to remember that the demon chained to the table had attacked her and Giles, threatened her sister. She'd seen its shrivelled flesh--Tara was dead. She deserved to have her body saved from whatever'd stolen it.
"Tara," she whispered to herself. Tara had been her friend. She had to look at her--Tara deserved that. Buffy opened her eyes and winced as she saw Tara again, still unconscious, still human. Maybe she'd recovered, maybe the thing had left her body during the beating to protect itself. Maybe...
That's not how it works, she told herself. She raised the chainsaw again.
Damn it, Buffy cursed to herself as she flipped the chainsaw off, this is just what it wants me to do.
She shook her head and sighed, whispering to the unconscious girl, "I'll do it if I have to," as she tugged on the chains, making sure Tara couldn't break or wriggle out of them if she woke up. She turned around, the chainsaw dangling from one hand as she pushed open the door, and she glanced back to the chained figure lying silent in the shadowy depths of the shed. She stepped out of the shed and turned around, grabbing the doorknob to lock the shed, then froze as a single, barely audible sound emerged from the back of the shed.
"See you soon Buffy," Tara's light giggling voice called from within the shadows.
Buffy shuddered, her blood freezing into ice, and she closed the door, locking and bolting it before running back across the shadow-draped clearing toward the cabin. She sprinted through the back door and slammed it shut as a cold sweeping wind howled through the creaking tree-branches, the wailing midnight wind seeming to form two words as she drew the bolt shut and fled back through the silent hallway toward the living-room.
"Join us..."
2
"My daughter Annie is due to arrive at the cabin in less than a week," Knowby's crackling voice said from the tape, "Since I have no way to warn to her not to come here, I have no other choice."
Giles swallowed silently and sat down at the desk as Xander and Anya sat with Dawn by the fire and Spike paced back and forth in front of the boarded-up living room window.
"I have seen the dark shadows moving in the woods and I have no doubt that whatever I have resurrected through this book is sure come calling for me...and, if she were to come, for Annie. Since the death of the last person who summoned them will dispel the spirits, I have decided to leave the cabin, taking with me only my old hunting rifle. Once I have lost sight of the cabin, I will...lay the spirits to rest once and for all."
"Are you alright," Spike asked as Buffy dropped the chainsaw by the back door and staggered into the living room, wiping her face with her shirt. She panted and looked up at his blank white-eyed expression, then to the rest of the group, all staring at her anxiously as she caught her breath and wiped away the dried blood and mud.
"I'm fine," she answered, "Tara's locked up in the workshed. If that thing in her's smart, it'll stay out there."
"Buffy," Giles started, then she suddenly cut him off, walking quickly to the front door and checking the lock, then turning back around as she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and sighing deeply.
"Just tell me you've figured out some way out of this mess."
"Actually, I think I may have something," he nodded to the tape player, sitting on the desk atop a road map, "I've been listening to the rest of Professor Knowby's recordings," he paused awkwardly, "fast- forwarding past all the incantations, of course, and he did mention giving a copy of his notes to a local priest, Father Allard. If Allard still has his copy of those notes, they may contain the passages we need to end this."
"So," Xander asked, looking out into the howling darkness, "where is this Padre Allard guy?"
"Not very far," Giles said as he walked back to the desk and looked at the map, "he's at the Sacred Heart Church, within walking distance of the cabin," he paused, "though we'd have to go through the woods."
"Are you insane," Anya cried out, "you don't have any idea what's out there! That thing's still flying around, and there's the trees, and I'm sure they've started possessing the rabbits," she suddenly shuddered and began to ramble, "there's probably a horde of them right now gathering around the cabin, hordes of little demon bunnies, waiting to nibble on us...I just knew this was going to happen, this is all your fault Xander!"
"MY fault," he looked up in surprise as she ran off to the kitchen, and he stood up to follow her, "what did I do?"
"But it's not as bad as all that," Giles said to Buffy, "we're not walking."
"Not walking," Buffy repeated, thought about it and then, still confused, asked, "not walking?"
"Not walking," he answered and nodded to Spike, "Spike, I want you to come with me. We don't know how fast the book's power is spreading but I'm sure it's reached the church by now."
"And let me guess, you're gonna need me to play bodyguard," Spike grunted sarcastically, then shrugged, "count me in. I need to let off some steam anyhow."
"What about us," Dawn asked.
"I want all of you to stay here with Buffy," Giles said as he picked up the axe and tossed it to Spike, who caught it with one hand, then he picked up the revolver and carefully began loading each of the bullets, "if we don't make it back," he looked over to Buffy, "you'll have to lead the rest of them out of this forest. Nobody has a better chance of doing that than you."
"No," Buffy shouted, "we're not splitting up! If you go out there..."
"The cabin's the safest place right now," Giles answered softly, "we can't all go out into the woods, that would slow us down and make this even more dangerous. You have to stay and protect them."
"Alright," Buffy answered after a long sigh, and she suddenly hugged Giles, "be careful out there."
"Right," he answered as he hugged her softly and let go, "give us about half an hour, no more than that. After that, it's all up to you."
"Yeah, no pressure," Buffy wiped tears from her streaked face, "see you soon?"
"Count on it," he nodded and turned to Spike, "ready?"
"Been ready all night, ripper," he answered, twirling the axe in one hand, "let's kick some deadite."
"Wait a minute," Dawn cried from the couch and she leaped up, running over to Giles and hugging him tightly, holding onto him, "why can't we all go, it'd be safer that way! Why do you have to go alone?"
"It wouldn't be safer," Giles answered as he squeezed her shoulders, "but trust me. We'll be fine."
"That's right, little bit," Spike answered with a smile, "I've got his back."
Dawn tried to smile back, still flinching at the sight of Spike's blank white eyes and blackened lips, then nodded and hugged him as well, turning back to Giles, "you'd better come back alive," and then looking up at Spike, "and you...just come back, alright?"
Spike snickered a little and nodded, then glanced up to Buffy.
"No goodbye hug from big sis?"
"Just be careful Spike," Buffy said warmly with a pat on his arm.
"Better than nothing," he shrugged, "let's go, Rupert."
"What about Xander and Anya," Dawn asked as she glanced to the bedroom, Anya screaming something about deadite bunnies as Xander tried to calm her, "don't you want to say goodbye to them?"
"There's no time," Giles said, "besides, we won't be gone long," then his expression turned serious as he looked to Buffy, "but if something goes wrong out there and...and I come back..."
"Don't say it," Buffy answered firmly, "I know what you mean, but don't say it."
"But you have to promise me that you won't hesit..."
"I promise," she answered seriously, meeting his eyes, "I swear it, lt's just...let's just not think about that, alright?"
Giles nodded and clicked the revolving chamber shut on the gun, pushing it into his pocket as he stepped out the door. Spike nodded to each of them and closed the door behind him. After an endless, speechless moment Buffy walked to the door and twisted the locks again, then looked back to Dawn.
They were alone.
3
"I can't believe he didn't tell me," Xander complained as he looked through the hallway closet.
"There wasn't really time," Buffy called out as she pulled open the desk drawers, "and they won't be gone for long. How's it looking in there?"
"He's going senile," Anya explained matter-of-factly as she yanked open the kitchen cabinets, "either that or he's just always been nuts," she cocked her head curiously, "was he awake when we drove back from the bridge? If he slept through it, maybe he doesn't know what's out there. That explains it. Old people sleep a lot"
"I'm pretty sure he was awake," Dawn called out as she checked the bedroom closet.
"Alright, what do we have," Buffy called out into the cabin. Xander came in from the hallway, hoisting the chainsaw in both hands as Anya emerged from the kitchen with a baseball bat. Buffy nodded to each of them and turned around toward the hallway, then suddenly gave a short scream as she saw Dawn walking around a corner with a rifle tucked under her arms.
"Dawn," she said sharply, "trade with Anya...I guess," as she lifted the double-barreled shotgun up and twirled it, then grabbed it in both hands and slid the pump-action bolt back with a click.
"Hail to the scooby gang, baby."
4
Headlights blazed through the forest and the station-wagon smashed through the woods, saplings and weeds ripped from the ground as it tore through the underbrush. A small tree stretched its branches out from the woods toward the car and suddenly its branches ripped in half, blood splattering across the windshield as the battered car rammed through the flickering weeds toward the distant light of a church.
Black howling winds swept through the forest, chasing after the dim red glow of the station-wagon's tail lights, knocking aside twigs and branches as it rushed forward through the clumps of dried foliage, splitting tree trunks in half and felling tall century-old trees as it shrieked and twisted forward after the car.
"Come on," Spike shouted gleefully as he twisted the steering wheel and smashed into another sapling, "that's right, come get some! Who wants a little, huh?"
"Spike," Giles said nervously from the passenger's seat, looking down at the map, "we're not trying to run down the whole forest, we just need to get to the church. We're lucky we found these electric poles...any other part of the forest would have been too thick to drive through."
It glided across a swiftly-running stream and rushed blindly forward, vines and branches sweeping back through its wake as it flew up a hill and dipped back down into a leaf-covered hollow, the speeding car's lights within arm's reach as it tumbled over the dead leaves, roaring with rage as it raced onward.
"Suit yourself mate," Spike shrugged as he stepped on the gas, the station-wagon digging through the bushes, then swung the car around to dodge a tree-trunk, "but I'm feeling the need for speed!"
Snarling voices filled the cold autumn air, an ethereal chorus of half-audible chanting tones rising and falling as it swept after the car like a kraken piercing the deepest oceans. Fog rolled and billowed outward from its wake as it flew through the crushed and beaten trail of the automobile.
The car climbed up a steep overgrown hill and suddenly leaped out of the woods, bouncing as it landed atop the summit in front of the small country church, and Spike swung the wheel once more, the car skidding and sliding toward the front doors, sliding sideways alongside the church as he killed the engine.
"They're getting close," Spike muttered under his breath, "I can hear them. Let's get inside, now!"
"Right," Giles answered, tugging at the locked church doors as Spike jogged up the steps. Spike nudged Giles out of the way and grabbed the doorknob, then ripped it completely off the door and tossed it away. He kicked open the door and the two of them ran into the church sanctuary as a howling wind rose behind them.
It raced up the hill and swept along the pine needles and scattered clumps of grass, roaring in pain and rage as it neared the searing light of the old church. Two figures rose up from the shadows as it twisted around the car and its countless voices shrieked in triumph...then howled in frustration as the church door slammed shut, the figures vanishing into the blinding, burning electric glow of the church.
Giles grabbed one of the wooden pews and dragged it across the stone floor, bracing it against the double doors, then turned around to look at the church. The sanctuary seemed to creak and rock in the autumn wind, the white paint on the walls chipping away and the pews and floorboards bare and unpainted. He looked over to Spike, who seemed to flinch a little at the sight of the church, then up at a plain flower-capped altar and podium set up on a small raised stage at the front of the church. Suddenly one of the doors leading into the back of the church burst open and a middle-aged man in black robes and a bowler hat stepped in, raising a huge chainsaw in the air.
"Now there's something you don't see every day," Spike remarked calmly.
"Get over here fast," the man shouted to Giles as he revved up the chainsaw and took a step forward, "your friend's been possessed!"
"No," Giles screamed out through the whine of the saw, "he's alright. You can put that down!"
"We don't have time," the priest screamed, "I've seen this before. Get away from him NOW!"
"Oh, for the love of," Spike muttered, rolling his blank white eyes, "look you ninny, if I were possessed I would have killed you both by now! I just...woke up on the wrong side of the grave this morning, I guess..."
"He really is alright," Giles said, stepping in front of Spike, "they tried to take possession of him but it didn't work. He looks like one of them but...he's still himself."
"How's that possible," the man asked, lowering the chainsaw to look at the two strangers.
"I don't have a soul for them to swallow," Spike sneered as he brushed past Giles and looked around at the small country church.
"So you're a vampire," the man said as he switched off the chainsaw, his dark eyes and battle-worn features tense as he sized the two visitors up, "but still safer than the thing out there, I guess. I'm Father Allard, of the Order of the Sacred Heart. Now...what in God's name are you two doing out here?"
5
"I keep the notes down here," Father Allard said as he pushed the altar aside to reveal a small hole in the wooden floor, "eight years ago the forest came to life and I studied the pages trying to figure out how to change it back to normal. But somehow the evil disappeared on its own, or maybe Knowby banished it. I tried to go back to his cabin, but I never did find the right trail--I guess whatever lives in this forest still had some hold on it."
"Why down there," Giles asked as the priest rose to his feet, holding the loose pages in one hand.
"This place is a church," Allard answered, "and the altar's the center of the church. I had hoped the evil would never look in here for the pages...and for eight years, I've been right."
"Is there a spell in the pages," Giles asked seriously, "one that can dispel the evil, send it back?"
"I continued to study the pages for years," Father Allard replied as he dusted off the yellowing pages, "and in time, yes, I did find something. Two passages, actually. One makes the evil a thing of flesh, and another passage to open a sort of hole in the sky, one that will banish the evil from this place."
"That sounds perfect," Giles answered, "we should get started..."
Allard suddenly screamed and looked down as a needle-tipped brass candle-holder stabbed through his chest, blood staining his white shirt as his eyes rolled back in his head. The pole ripped out of his body from behind and Allard tumbled to the ground, dead. Giles looked up from the body to Spike as the vampire staggered backward for a moment, then smiled and swung the brass rod in his hand like a baton, dead white eyes staring at Giles.
"Spike," Giles cried out, "what have you done?!"
"William has finally joined us," a guttural demonic voice rose from between Spike's cracked lips, then his head flung backward in a high- pitched cackling shriek, "and soon all mankind shall follow him!"
6
Buffy looked up from the window as glass suddenly shattered in one of the bedrooms, lifting the shotgun to her chest as she stepped down from the couch and looked slowly around at the living room, as Xander, Dawn and Anya glanced from her to the shadowy hallway and closed bedroom doors.
"Stay here with Dawn," Buffy said quietly, "I'll check it out."
She slowly walked across the living room and cringed at the creaking floorboards as she tried to make her way silently through the hall. She stopped at the closed bedroom door and sighed, taking a deep breath. She kicked the bedroom door open and waved the shotgun around the empty room.
Broken glass lay strewn around the room and across the orange bedsheets and she slowly looked around the room, gun still lifted as she slowly turned her head, scanning the dust-filled bedroom and the half-open bathroom door across the room. She slowly, reluctantly stepped over the threshold, still gripping the shotgun tightly.
Come on Tara, she whispered, I heard you breaking the window...
She suddenly shook her head with confusion; the windows had already shattered earlier, how could she have heard another one breaking again just now? She looked closer and noticed the pieces seemed too shiny, as if they were diamonds or water rather than real glass. She bent down and lifted one of the jagged pieces between her fingers.
"A mirror," she muttered to herself, confused, and looked up to the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, now an empty wooden frame with a few pieces of glass stubbornly dangling from the edges. She looked around the empty bedroom once more, her brow furrowed with bewilderment.
Why would the mirror...
She felt someone backhand her across the face and she flew sideways across the room, landing atop the bright orange bedsheets, and looked up, ready to fight. She suddenly froze and shook her head at what she saw standing in front of her, a slight coy smile on its face as it stared back across the room at her.
It was her. The same dark pants, the same white blouse, the same fastened hair. The thing could have been her twin--its brown eyes gleamed as it looked into her own brown eyes and its cheeks folded into the same dimples as it smiled at the real Buffy, who lifted herself back onto her feet and shook her head in speechless confusion.
"It's like looking into a mirror," the other girl asked in Buffy's own voice, "isn't it, Buffy," and it began to laugh, girlish giggles mingling with deep monstrous shrieks as it suddenly lunged forward.
by Demon-Fighter Ash
Chapter 3: Looking-Glass Forest
1
Buffy dropped Tara's body onto a wooden table and looked around at the workshed. Bones dangled from the ceiling and knives, saws and cleavers draped the walls. She shook her head, not daring to wonder what anyone would want with that many blades, and noticed chains hanging from the table. She grabbed each one and stretched them tight across Tara's motionless body, looping them through metal rings set into the edges and clicking padlocks over each ring, the chains digging into Tara's clothes, holding her tight against the table.
Buffy lifted up from the table and, after a moment of looking frantically about the shed, she found what she was looking for--a chainsaw hanging above one of the shelves. She grabbed it and turned it over in her hand, finally finding a pull-string and nervously tugging it. The chainsaw roared to life and she winced as she felt it shaking in her hand, sparks and smoke flying from the spinning blade, the engine rattling for the first time in nearly a decade. She glanced back down to the thing on the table as the clacking motor began to steady.
It was Tara. The long shining blonde hair, the slightly blushing cheeks, the faint down on her slender bare arms--whatever demon had invaded her body had vanished, leaving only her friend, seemingly asleep.
Of course it looks like that, Buffy thought to herself, it thinks I won't kill it if it looks like that.
She closed her eyes and began to lower the chainsaw over the thing's arm, trying to forget what she'd seen, trying to remember that the demon chained to the table had attacked her and Giles, threatened her sister. She'd seen its shrivelled flesh--Tara was dead. She deserved to have her body saved from whatever'd stolen it.
"Tara," she whispered to herself. Tara had been her friend. She had to look at her--Tara deserved that. Buffy opened her eyes and winced as she saw Tara again, still unconscious, still human. Maybe she'd recovered, maybe the thing had left her body during the beating to protect itself. Maybe...
That's not how it works, she told herself. She raised the chainsaw again.
Damn it, Buffy cursed to herself as she flipped the chainsaw off, this is just what it wants me to do.
She shook her head and sighed, whispering to the unconscious girl, "I'll do it if I have to," as she tugged on the chains, making sure Tara couldn't break or wriggle out of them if she woke up. She turned around, the chainsaw dangling from one hand as she pushed open the door, and she glanced back to the chained figure lying silent in the shadowy depths of the shed. She stepped out of the shed and turned around, grabbing the doorknob to lock the shed, then froze as a single, barely audible sound emerged from the back of the shed.
"See you soon Buffy," Tara's light giggling voice called from within the shadows.
Buffy shuddered, her blood freezing into ice, and she closed the door, locking and bolting it before running back across the shadow-draped clearing toward the cabin. She sprinted through the back door and slammed it shut as a cold sweeping wind howled through the creaking tree-branches, the wailing midnight wind seeming to form two words as she drew the bolt shut and fled back through the silent hallway toward the living-room.
"Join us..."
2
"My daughter Annie is due to arrive at the cabin in less than a week," Knowby's crackling voice said from the tape, "Since I have no way to warn to her not to come here, I have no other choice."
Giles swallowed silently and sat down at the desk as Xander and Anya sat with Dawn by the fire and Spike paced back and forth in front of the boarded-up living room window.
"I have seen the dark shadows moving in the woods and I have no doubt that whatever I have resurrected through this book is sure come calling for me...and, if she were to come, for Annie. Since the death of the last person who summoned them will dispel the spirits, I have decided to leave the cabin, taking with me only my old hunting rifle. Once I have lost sight of the cabin, I will...lay the spirits to rest once and for all."
"Are you alright," Spike asked as Buffy dropped the chainsaw by the back door and staggered into the living room, wiping her face with her shirt. She panted and looked up at his blank white-eyed expression, then to the rest of the group, all staring at her anxiously as she caught her breath and wiped away the dried blood and mud.
"I'm fine," she answered, "Tara's locked up in the workshed. If that thing in her's smart, it'll stay out there."
"Buffy," Giles started, then she suddenly cut him off, walking quickly to the front door and checking the lock, then turning back around as she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and sighing deeply.
"Just tell me you've figured out some way out of this mess."
"Actually, I think I may have something," he nodded to the tape player, sitting on the desk atop a road map, "I've been listening to the rest of Professor Knowby's recordings," he paused awkwardly, "fast- forwarding past all the incantations, of course, and he did mention giving a copy of his notes to a local priest, Father Allard. If Allard still has his copy of those notes, they may contain the passages we need to end this."
"So," Xander asked, looking out into the howling darkness, "where is this Padre Allard guy?"
"Not very far," Giles said as he walked back to the desk and looked at the map, "he's at the Sacred Heart Church, within walking distance of the cabin," he paused, "though we'd have to go through the woods."
"Are you insane," Anya cried out, "you don't have any idea what's out there! That thing's still flying around, and there's the trees, and I'm sure they've started possessing the rabbits," she suddenly shuddered and began to ramble, "there's probably a horde of them right now gathering around the cabin, hordes of little demon bunnies, waiting to nibble on us...I just knew this was going to happen, this is all your fault Xander!"
"MY fault," he looked up in surprise as she ran off to the kitchen, and he stood up to follow her, "what did I do?"
"But it's not as bad as all that," Giles said to Buffy, "we're not walking."
"Not walking," Buffy repeated, thought about it and then, still confused, asked, "not walking?"
"Not walking," he answered and nodded to Spike, "Spike, I want you to come with me. We don't know how fast the book's power is spreading but I'm sure it's reached the church by now."
"And let me guess, you're gonna need me to play bodyguard," Spike grunted sarcastically, then shrugged, "count me in. I need to let off some steam anyhow."
"What about us," Dawn asked.
"I want all of you to stay here with Buffy," Giles said as he picked up the axe and tossed it to Spike, who caught it with one hand, then he picked up the revolver and carefully began loading each of the bullets, "if we don't make it back," he looked over to Buffy, "you'll have to lead the rest of them out of this forest. Nobody has a better chance of doing that than you."
"No," Buffy shouted, "we're not splitting up! If you go out there..."
"The cabin's the safest place right now," Giles answered softly, "we can't all go out into the woods, that would slow us down and make this even more dangerous. You have to stay and protect them."
"Alright," Buffy answered after a long sigh, and she suddenly hugged Giles, "be careful out there."
"Right," he answered as he hugged her softly and let go, "give us about half an hour, no more than that. After that, it's all up to you."
"Yeah, no pressure," Buffy wiped tears from her streaked face, "see you soon?"
"Count on it," he nodded and turned to Spike, "ready?"
"Been ready all night, ripper," he answered, twirling the axe in one hand, "let's kick some deadite."
"Wait a minute," Dawn cried from the couch and she leaped up, running over to Giles and hugging him tightly, holding onto him, "why can't we all go, it'd be safer that way! Why do you have to go alone?"
"It wouldn't be safer," Giles answered as he squeezed her shoulders, "but trust me. We'll be fine."
"That's right, little bit," Spike answered with a smile, "I've got his back."
Dawn tried to smile back, still flinching at the sight of Spike's blank white eyes and blackened lips, then nodded and hugged him as well, turning back to Giles, "you'd better come back alive," and then looking up at Spike, "and you...just come back, alright?"
Spike snickered a little and nodded, then glanced up to Buffy.
"No goodbye hug from big sis?"
"Just be careful Spike," Buffy said warmly with a pat on his arm.
"Better than nothing," he shrugged, "let's go, Rupert."
"What about Xander and Anya," Dawn asked as she glanced to the bedroom, Anya screaming something about deadite bunnies as Xander tried to calm her, "don't you want to say goodbye to them?"
"There's no time," Giles said, "besides, we won't be gone long," then his expression turned serious as he looked to Buffy, "but if something goes wrong out there and...and I come back..."
"Don't say it," Buffy answered firmly, "I know what you mean, but don't say it."
"But you have to promise me that you won't hesit..."
"I promise," she answered seriously, meeting his eyes, "I swear it, lt's just...let's just not think about that, alright?"
Giles nodded and clicked the revolving chamber shut on the gun, pushing it into his pocket as he stepped out the door. Spike nodded to each of them and closed the door behind him. After an endless, speechless moment Buffy walked to the door and twisted the locks again, then looked back to Dawn.
They were alone.
3
"I can't believe he didn't tell me," Xander complained as he looked through the hallway closet.
"There wasn't really time," Buffy called out as she pulled open the desk drawers, "and they won't be gone for long. How's it looking in there?"
"He's going senile," Anya explained matter-of-factly as she yanked open the kitchen cabinets, "either that or he's just always been nuts," she cocked her head curiously, "was he awake when we drove back from the bridge? If he slept through it, maybe he doesn't know what's out there. That explains it. Old people sleep a lot"
"I'm pretty sure he was awake," Dawn called out as she checked the bedroom closet.
"Alright, what do we have," Buffy called out into the cabin. Xander came in from the hallway, hoisting the chainsaw in both hands as Anya emerged from the kitchen with a baseball bat. Buffy nodded to each of them and turned around toward the hallway, then suddenly gave a short scream as she saw Dawn walking around a corner with a rifle tucked under her arms.
"Dawn," she said sharply, "trade with Anya...I guess," as she lifted the double-barreled shotgun up and twirled it, then grabbed it in both hands and slid the pump-action bolt back with a click.
"Hail to the scooby gang, baby."
4
Headlights blazed through the forest and the station-wagon smashed through the woods, saplings and weeds ripped from the ground as it tore through the underbrush. A small tree stretched its branches out from the woods toward the car and suddenly its branches ripped in half, blood splattering across the windshield as the battered car rammed through the flickering weeds toward the distant light of a church.
Black howling winds swept through the forest, chasing after the dim red glow of the station-wagon's tail lights, knocking aside twigs and branches as it rushed forward through the clumps of dried foliage, splitting tree trunks in half and felling tall century-old trees as it shrieked and twisted forward after the car.
"Come on," Spike shouted gleefully as he twisted the steering wheel and smashed into another sapling, "that's right, come get some! Who wants a little, huh?"
"Spike," Giles said nervously from the passenger's seat, looking down at the map, "we're not trying to run down the whole forest, we just need to get to the church. We're lucky we found these electric poles...any other part of the forest would have been too thick to drive through."
It glided across a swiftly-running stream and rushed blindly forward, vines and branches sweeping back through its wake as it flew up a hill and dipped back down into a leaf-covered hollow, the speeding car's lights within arm's reach as it tumbled over the dead leaves, roaring with rage as it raced onward.
"Suit yourself mate," Spike shrugged as he stepped on the gas, the station-wagon digging through the bushes, then swung the car around to dodge a tree-trunk, "but I'm feeling the need for speed!"
Snarling voices filled the cold autumn air, an ethereal chorus of half-audible chanting tones rising and falling as it swept after the car like a kraken piercing the deepest oceans. Fog rolled and billowed outward from its wake as it flew through the crushed and beaten trail of the automobile.
The car climbed up a steep overgrown hill and suddenly leaped out of the woods, bouncing as it landed atop the summit in front of the small country church, and Spike swung the wheel once more, the car skidding and sliding toward the front doors, sliding sideways alongside the church as he killed the engine.
"They're getting close," Spike muttered under his breath, "I can hear them. Let's get inside, now!"
"Right," Giles answered, tugging at the locked church doors as Spike jogged up the steps. Spike nudged Giles out of the way and grabbed the doorknob, then ripped it completely off the door and tossed it away. He kicked open the door and the two of them ran into the church sanctuary as a howling wind rose behind them.
It raced up the hill and swept along the pine needles and scattered clumps of grass, roaring in pain and rage as it neared the searing light of the old church. Two figures rose up from the shadows as it twisted around the car and its countless voices shrieked in triumph...then howled in frustration as the church door slammed shut, the figures vanishing into the blinding, burning electric glow of the church.
Giles grabbed one of the wooden pews and dragged it across the stone floor, bracing it against the double doors, then turned around to look at the church. The sanctuary seemed to creak and rock in the autumn wind, the white paint on the walls chipping away and the pews and floorboards bare and unpainted. He looked over to Spike, who seemed to flinch a little at the sight of the church, then up at a plain flower-capped altar and podium set up on a small raised stage at the front of the church. Suddenly one of the doors leading into the back of the church burst open and a middle-aged man in black robes and a bowler hat stepped in, raising a huge chainsaw in the air.
"Now there's something you don't see every day," Spike remarked calmly.
"Get over here fast," the man shouted to Giles as he revved up the chainsaw and took a step forward, "your friend's been possessed!"
"No," Giles screamed out through the whine of the saw, "he's alright. You can put that down!"
"We don't have time," the priest screamed, "I've seen this before. Get away from him NOW!"
"Oh, for the love of," Spike muttered, rolling his blank white eyes, "look you ninny, if I were possessed I would have killed you both by now! I just...woke up on the wrong side of the grave this morning, I guess..."
"He really is alright," Giles said, stepping in front of Spike, "they tried to take possession of him but it didn't work. He looks like one of them but...he's still himself."
"How's that possible," the man asked, lowering the chainsaw to look at the two strangers.
"I don't have a soul for them to swallow," Spike sneered as he brushed past Giles and looked around at the small country church.
"So you're a vampire," the man said as he switched off the chainsaw, his dark eyes and battle-worn features tense as he sized the two visitors up, "but still safer than the thing out there, I guess. I'm Father Allard, of the Order of the Sacred Heart. Now...what in God's name are you two doing out here?"
5
"I keep the notes down here," Father Allard said as he pushed the altar aside to reveal a small hole in the wooden floor, "eight years ago the forest came to life and I studied the pages trying to figure out how to change it back to normal. But somehow the evil disappeared on its own, or maybe Knowby banished it. I tried to go back to his cabin, but I never did find the right trail--I guess whatever lives in this forest still had some hold on it."
"Why down there," Giles asked as the priest rose to his feet, holding the loose pages in one hand.
"This place is a church," Allard answered, "and the altar's the center of the church. I had hoped the evil would never look in here for the pages...and for eight years, I've been right."
"Is there a spell in the pages," Giles asked seriously, "one that can dispel the evil, send it back?"
"I continued to study the pages for years," Father Allard replied as he dusted off the yellowing pages, "and in time, yes, I did find something. Two passages, actually. One makes the evil a thing of flesh, and another passage to open a sort of hole in the sky, one that will banish the evil from this place."
"That sounds perfect," Giles answered, "we should get started..."
Allard suddenly screamed and looked down as a needle-tipped brass candle-holder stabbed through his chest, blood staining his white shirt as his eyes rolled back in his head. The pole ripped out of his body from behind and Allard tumbled to the ground, dead. Giles looked up from the body to Spike as the vampire staggered backward for a moment, then smiled and swung the brass rod in his hand like a baton, dead white eyes staring at Giles.
"Spike," Giles cried out, "what have you done?!"
"William has finally joined us," a guttural demonic voice rose from between Spike's cracked lips, then his head flung backward in a high- pitched cackling shriek, "and soon all mankind shall follow him!"
6
Buffy looked up from the window as glass suddenly shattered in one of the bedrooms, lifting the shotgun to her chest as she stepped down from the couch and looked slowly around at the living room, as Xander, Dawn and Anya glanced from her to the shadowy hallway and closed bedroom doors.
"Stay here with Dawn," Buffy said quietly, "I'll check it out."
She slowly walked across the living room and cringed at the creaking floorboards as she tried to make her way silently through the hall. She stopped at the closed bedroom door and sighed, taking a deep breath. She kicked the bedroom door open and waved the shotgun around the empty room.
Broken glass lay strewn around the room and across the orange bedsheets and she slowly looked around the room, gun still lifted as she slowly turned her head, scanning the dust-filled bedroom and the half-open bathroom door across the room. She slowly, reluctantly stepped over the threshold, still gripping the shotgun tightly.
Come on Tara, she whispered, I heard you breaking the window...
She suddenly shook her head with confusion; the windows had already shattered earlier, how could she have heard another one breaking again just now? She looked closer and noticed the pieces seemed too shiny, as if they were diamonds or water rather than real glass. She bent down and lifted one of the jagged pieces between her fingers.
"A mirror," she muttered to herself, confused, and looked up to the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, now an empty wooden frame with a few pieces of glass stubbornly dangling from the edges. She looked around the empty bedroom once more, her brow furrowed with bewilderment.
Why would the mirror...
She felt someone backhand her across the face and she flew sideways across the room, landing atop the bright orange bedsheets, and looked up, ready to fight. She suddenly froze and shook her head at what she saw standing in front of her, a slight coy smile on its face as it stared back across the room at her.
It was her. The same dark pants, the same white blouse, the same fastened hair. The thing could have been her twin--its brown eyes gleamed as it looked into her own brown eyes and its cheeks folded into the same dimples as it smiled at the real Buffy, who lifted herself back onto her feet and shook her head in speechless confusion.
"It's like looking into a mirror," the other girl asked in Buffy's own voice, "isn't it, Buffy," and it began to laugh, girlish giggles mingling with deep monstrous shrieks as it suddenly lunged forward.