SLAYER, SLEW, SLAIN
By Niels van Eekelen
TelltaleProd@Hotmail.com
www.TelltaleProductions.tk
The next time I woke up I was in a hospital. I had bruised a couple of ribs and had suffered a slight concussion. Thank god I didn't have to stay there for long. I can't stand hospitals. Everything's so clean there, and orderly, it makes me feel like they're gonna decide how everything in the hospital is going to happen. It's kinda hard to explain exactly, but as you might know, I like being in control.
Of course, everyone besides Maria and me was amazed at how quickly I healed, but we didn't give the doctors the time to study me for it.
Not long after that came the mess with Kenny, which I am not fucking gonna repeat again, and less than two days after that, we got a message from the Watchers' Council. They wanted the two of us to start travelling all across the country to mop up the various evils lurking about. I think Maria didn't really want to take me away from my hometown, but I didn't mind, especially right then--as long as the Council picked up the travelling bills. Our finances were running a bit tight.
The first place we were sent to was New York, where they were suffering from a minor vamp infestation. Surprise, surprise, 'cause in the Big Apple they have an extensive set of sewer tunnels, too. Seems like you can always find trash and vamps in the same places. Birds of a feather, and all that. They were totally unprepared for anyone who actually fought back, and it took us only a few nights to root them out.
The next three months of my life were like that. Maria and I went from one place to the next, usually not staying more than a few days before moving on. Not every place we went to was on direct assignment from the Watchers' Council, not by a long shot, but they did their best to keep us busy.
Because we didn't have the time to make any other friends, Maria and I became even closer. I hung out and did stuff with guys from time to time, but I didn't have or take the time to make it serious--and they all kinda turned out to be losers anyway. Maria's stiff, British persona slipped away further and further. To explain why she and I travelled together, we took to telling that I was her niece, and she my aunt. I was pretty much how we felt, anyway. Like family. I was staying in the same hotel rooms as Maria most of the time. Oh, Maria would tell me that when we arrived there and there, I'd have to get my own room, but the first thing I always do when I get in town anywhere is patrolling it for possible demonic hotspots, and when I got back late at night or early in the morning, I was tired, and just flopped down onto Maria's couch--or if she'd anticipated what I'd do, on the room's second bed.
It was quite an exciting time for me, I remember. In all my life, I'd never been further away from Boston than the surrounding countryside, and now we were going everywhere in the US, from East Coast to West Coast to the prairie in between, living one adventure after another. Don't get me wrong, slaying is never anything else than a tough job, but it made--and still does--me feel alive.
For a time, nothing much spectacular happened--except if you want to count stories like the one where I wrestled the alligator. That was actually one of my tougher fights, but it was a straightforward one: I went in, wrestled the alligator, and staked its owner, the vamp. Or there's the story of that night when the summer was particularly stiflingly hot, and I was lying on my bed butt-naked when a bus was attacked by vampires right outside my window and I went outside to fend them of. God, did I feel embarrassed when Maria came to bail me out of jail. And she just couldn't stop laughing, no matter how hard she tried.
Anyway, Xander seemed to find those tales amusing--not to mention arousing--enough when I told them the first time, but they're hardly important to the story of my life--which, after all, is what all this crap is about.
What was most important--what I remember best from those months--were moments of seemingly perfect normalcy, hours that you would sooner expect in the life of a normal teenager than the fuckin' Chosen One.
There's one afternoon in particular that I like to remember. I was sitting on my bed, waiting for my toenails to dry. I'm not even sure which part of the country we were in at the time, but it was still summer, and damn hot, too.
Maria and I always travelled as lightly as possible--pack and unpack as often as we used to, and a lot of things you kept around because you never wanted to just throw them away suddenly starting seeming like so much dead weight. Anyways, this time I'd brought a stack of comics from the last place we'd been, and I was flipping through them for the second or third time. It were some issues of Bone, I think. Yeah, the ones with the baby Rat Creature in them. I'd nicked them from the store, and I was incredibly nervous that Maria would catch me with them, 'cause she knew I hadn't had any money to spare for a while. The Council had been going damn cheap on us for the last while. They'd probably had their stock plummet or something, I thought. Or maybe they'd run out of tea and they were just grouchy.
I was laughing about something in the comic when Maria suddenly opened the door. I started, and nearly fell of the bed.
"Sorry," Maria apologised, grinning. "Dinner's here." Then she noticed the comics and frowned. It wasn't the first time I'd stolen some, so she had reason to be suspicious. "Where did you get those?" Maria asked, suddenly sounding very British again.
I got up from the bed casually and walked around it to get to the door. "Had them in my bag for a while," I lied. Then I looked at her questioningly. "What? It's not like I yanked'em or anything."
She shook her head. "Nothing." Ah, well, that was Maria. She could spot a demon beneath any face, but other than that, she was pretty easily fooled.
I felt guilty for two days. Not about the theft--I always figured the world owed me a few--but about lying to Maria.
After that, we ate a few slices of pizza with triple anchovies, and then took the night off to go to a movie we both wanted to see.
OK, so maybe it's not completely normal for a teenager to steal things, but at least it had little to do with being Chosen.
Story written by Niels van Eekelen. © Copyright 2004 Telltale Productions.
In a perfect world, I would own the series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Angel'. Alas, it is not, and I bow my head to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Ah, well. It's probably for the best, me not having a contract to put the show on the air and all.
A special thanks to Paul Leone and Teresa Owens, from whose story 'The Deliverer' I nicked the name of Faith's Watcher, though not the character.