So Not in the Instruction Booklet
Chapter One
When in Doubt, Use the Pointy Piece of Wood
28 February, 2003
Diary,
See, I have this little day-dream in my head that I replay during classes when I'm bored out of my skull - namely Sociology. I walk into the library at school - even though that's rather impossible at the moment as it's being renovated to put computers in. Pfft. Computers. They don't belong in the library - that's what the computer room is for. Getting back to my little day-dream. I walk into the library, which is strangely empty, considering in my day-dream, I walk into it at lunch time. I find that Mrs. Richards, the librarian, isn't there. Instead, there's a man standing there at the book checkout desk, with his back turned to me. He's reading a book. Which I'm supposed to be getting - a book, not the one he's holding - for my English teacher, because we've run out of copies of Hamlet. I shift nervously from foot to foot for a minute, waiting for the man to turn around.
I then clear my throat and the man seems to jump as he turns around - probably because I've startled him. He stares at me for a moment and at this point, my eyebrows have jumped halfway up my forehead because I'm staring at Wesley Whyndam-Pryce, who is staring back at me with a surprised expression. He asks me what my name is and I tell him. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then his eyes widen. He then hands me the book he had been thumbing through. And then he starts in on the whole speech about how there's "one girl in all the world with the strength and the - " well, you get the picture.
Of course, that's not where it ends. Good ol' Wes drops the bombshell
on me that I'm the "one girl in all the world". That I'm the Slayer. I
stare at him in shock and just gape.
Riiiiiiiinnnnnnnnggggggggg! The shrill clanging bell that signalled that second period was over was as loud as ever. And, as usual, it caused me to drop my pencil. And jump a bit in my seat. Some times - well, a lot of the time, really - I wish I wasn't so jumpy. I quickly picked up my pen and flipped the small leather-bound book that I call a diary closed.
"What, is it a ritual of yours to write in that thing?" I looked up to see Grace standing in the doorway of the classroom - room two-one-two, to be precise. The room where I have English class, taught by Mr. Black every day from nine forty-five to eleven o'clock, at which time lunch period begins.
"I write when I get bored," I shrugged, carelessly tossing the black book into my backpack. I abused that book too much, with all the places it had been shoved, tossed, or kicked into.
"You obviously get bored way too much in English then," Grace replied. She handed me a rather large, thick text. "Here's the book you wanted. The complete works of Oscar Wilde complete with a biography on him."
I groaned. "I have the feeling the library will be my home for the very long hours after school."
"Your fault you waited until the last minute to do your independent author study." Grace replied, with an air of superiority around her.
"Oh, quit it with the holier-than-thou attitude." I muttered, tucking the rather large and heavy book under my arm.
And I was right about my library prediction. I ended up there at two-fifty, a good twenty minutes after school had ended - on the way, I had slipped on the icy sidewalks twice. I had almost slipped again when a cell phone rang in my pocket. Obviously, I had forgotten to give it back to my mother. Who, incidentally, was the one calling to remind me to be home in time for dinner, as Aunt Lilah was visiting. I find it highly amusing that I have an aunt named Lilah Morgan, as she's my dad's sister and un-married. I haven't seen her in a few years, though.
The time when I finally finished my ten-page report was around six-fifteen. That caused me to wince. Fifteen minutes past six, which was the usual supper time in my house. Which mean that I was already late, not calculating in the at least twenty minutes of walking time that it would take to get home.
"Then factoring in the time that I'll probably spend slipping on ice due to that damn ice storm three days ago." I muttered, pulling my coat on and slinging my backpack on over top of that. I walked out of the library, into the crisp night air. Well, not exactly night, more like sunset. That cause me to stop. Well, that and the fact that the temperature was suddenly quite a few degrees warmer than it should have been. As well as the other fact that I had been walking for about five minutes and I had not slipped on a single patch of ice, when everyone who lived in this place knew that the library sidewalk always ices over every winter.
So I stood there for a moment and looked around, rather nervously. The I took off my coat and shoved it into my backpack. That involved bargaining with a few books, my binder, pencil case and old Doritos bags. Needless to say, the pencil case got shoved into a different pouch and the old chip bags were tossed into a garbage can. Now that I wasn't in danger of sweating to death, I resumed my somewhat confused looking around.
In the fading daylight, I saw that I was still standing somewhat near the library. I turned and looked around. None of the normal buildings were by the library either. No Bank of Montreal, no Shopper's Drug Mart and no Markham Copy Depot. A chill was definitely working its way up my spine. The only thing other than the library around seemed to be a sign, like one of those "Welcome to Such and Such Town". Well, and a small park. But the sign was in the park, so I counted the two as one thing.
The library was not supposed to be near one of those signs. There's only one in the place where I live and it's by Wal-Mart, on the other side of town. With a feeling of somewhat mortal dread in the pit of my stomach, I walked to the sign and looked at the side with the writing.
And my heart nearly stopped. It read "Welcome to Sunnydale".
Hyperventilating seemed to be a viable option at that point, except for the fact that my body still seemed to be in shock. From the sign and the recognition that it was now fully dark out. Which, if this was Sunnydale, was an extremely bad thing.
Of course, I was jolted out of said shock as I heard the roar of a car engine. I whirled around and saw the bright headlights of what was a distinctive speeding vehicle. Speeding very much in the direction of me.
"Eeechhh!" I yelped and ran to the right, hoping that by some miracle, I would get out of the way. I tripped over a tree root.
And, judging from the crashing sound and the car that stopped a few feet to the left of me, very much in the spot that I had just been in, I was still alive. I half-lay there on the ground, not noticing that my backpack straps had slipped down my arms and now were on the ground. The car looked familiar. Rather extremely familiar.
I heard the unmistakable sound of a car door being kicked open. Rock music filled the air. Rather extremely familiar rock music. Then I saw a foot. Well, it was pretty much all I could see from my vantage point of being quite near the ground. Slowly, I got to my feet to see the back of a bleached blond head. And cigarette smoke spiralling upward from said bleached blonde head.
"Home, sweet home." The voice with a British accent.
"Okay, this is extremely weird and psychotic." I muttered to myself. Obviously too loudly as the owner of said bleached blonde head turned around. My eyes widened even more than they already had - if it was even possible - as I saw the fully vamped-out face of Spike, also known as William the Bloody.
"And there's even a welcoming gift." The recently lit cigarette was tossed to the ground as Spike chuckled and grinned.
I eeped. And began to back up. Then I began to look around frantically. "Uhh . . . vampire. Pointy piece of wood! Need pointy piece of wood!"
Wood, there was. Only, I realized with a sinking heart, that it was all tree-shaped.
"Branches!" I yelped, glancing back over to see where Spike was.
He was right in front of me. I yelped, this time without a coherent syllable.
"Oh, this won't hurt a bit." Spike said, his teeth looking rather sharp and jagged. And entirely too near my mouth for my own comfort. And his hands were gripping my forearms rather hard.
"It'll hurt a lot," I wriggled, trying to break free of his grip. "So, how about you don't do it, huh?"
A chuckle was the reply. "Hmm . . . no."
"Oooh." I bit my lip. Spike. Teeth. Neck. Bad. Very bad. I did the only thing that I could probably do at that point in time. I kicked him in the shin as hard as I could.
"Bloody hell!" Obviously, from his swearing, I had succeeded in hurting him. I also judged from the fact that he had let go of me. I ran toward the tree and broke off the closest branch I could. I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a pencil out of my backpack, but that would just look wimpy.
"Back, evil Spike!" Now I knew how Willow felt when she was faced with a vampire. My voice wavered a little, but I held up my makeshift stake. "I have a pointy piece of wood! I know how to use it! I also have a . . . uhh . . . other non-vampire-likey-stuff too!" A total lie, but I was rather frightened at this moment.
"Fancying yourself the Slayer?" An eyebrow raised and I noticed that Spike had slipped back into his more attractive, more human-like face. He stopped for a moment, slightly confused. "How did you know my name?"
"I - uh - I know a lot of things," I said, thinking something along the lines of maybe, somehow, I can convince him that I'm psychic and he won't kill me! However, there was a voice in my head that was going Oh, stop it. It's hopeless. You're going to die. Calmly, I told that voice to shut up. "I know that you're here in town for the night of St. Vigious, you fed off a flower-person at Woodstock and spent the next five hours watching your hand move, and - "
"Six," Spike interjected.
I looked at him with a blank look.
"I watched my hand move for six hours." Spike said, giving me a look that plainly stated that he thought I was a complete and total idiot. Not to mention, I felt like one.
"Yeah," I nodded.
"And how the bloody hell did you know that?" Spike folded his arms, looking very menacing. Well, except for the moment in which I briefly imagined Spike sitting in a field, watching his hand move and giggling at it every so often.
"Psychic?" I offered up weakly.
"You obviously don't know who you're trying to fool," Spike said, sounding exhasperated. His facial features shifted back into vampirical ones.
"A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory." I quoted Drusilla's line from Fool For Love. Spike looked utterly astonished, needless to say. He was silent and I ventured to add, "that and burning baby fish swimming all around your head."
"She knows my words." The voice was soft and female. Another chill was tango-ing its way up my spine. I slowly turned my head and saw that Drusilla was standing a great deal closer to me than I would like her to be.
"You have some explaining to do, before I change my mind and suck you bone dry." I felt a hand close on my wrist - the one that was attached to the hand of mine that was holding the branch. I looked and saw that Spike was now standing a good deal closer than I wanted him to be - no matter how incredibly good-looking he was.
"Eep." Seemed to be the only thing that I could think of to say.