Roads Less Traveled
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 1: the Marble Steps
Part Three
"What was it?"
The group at the diner was picking lightly at their now cold burgers. Xander was considering the consequences of helping Joanna find whatever it was in the woods, and of ignoring the problem and just getting her, as well as Dawn and himself, the hell out of there. Joanna was staring at the square she'd marked out in her ketchup while telling the story. Dawn was still caught up in the tale.
"That's just it," Joanna smeared the square away with another french fry. "Mom wouldn't say. I don't think she knew. And Cabin John is as quiet as any metro area community. I guess I always thought that she'd made it up, but when the class project came up, I thought it would be a great idea to look into it. But what if it's real? I mean, if I'm some sort of mystical force of good, does that mean I have to go fight it?"
Xander sighed and slapped his credit card down on top of the bill. It wouldn't be right to leave the thing out there, if it was real. "Not yet, you wouldn't." He looked back up at Joanna, who had tears leaking at the corners of her eyes. "We don't know enough about it, if it does exist, going after it now would be a death sentence. And while there's all sorts of wacky fun to be had in the midst of a battle, there is a sort of process we can follow before we get there. Right now, I suggest you keep working on the project. Research is the key now."
"Damn." Joanna smiled, but it didn't come close to seeming real. "I knew I shouldn't have procrastinated. I was just going to take pictures of the foundation, tell the story to the class, and then bull shit something about how it developed out of a post-war mentality. Hell, I don't even know where to start."
Dawn blinked. "Well, um, grade wise? You could still do that. Xander and I can help on the research front. Though I don't suppose your local library has a very good occult section."
"You guys would–" Joanna rubbed at her eyes. "Hell, I'm still not certain you're not a couple of con artists taking advantage of a confused teen."
"Tell ya what," Xander pulled his coat back on. "We'll head back to Cabin John. Show us this foundation, take whatever pictures you want, then go and interview a couple of residents, if you can. Dawn and I will hit the books, see what we can find out about any supernatural stuff in the area. That way, you can still get the info you need for your project, and don't have to expose yourself too a couple of frauds while you're at it." He tossed her a card with their cellphone number on it, along with a bit of change. "Give us a call when you need a ride back to your place, and we'll set up a meeting time to discuss anything we may have found."
Joanna pocketed the card, but left the change. "I've got a cell. Jesus, I don't know what to think any more. You people really are the masters of mind fuck, aren't you."
"Oh, you don't know the half of it." Xander stood. "You coming?"
"Yeah, I'm in. I don't know what I'm in, but I'm in."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"That's a really small crack." Dawn cocked her head to one side, staring down at the ten foot by ten foot concrete foundation that jutted from the side of the hill. She glanced down the hill. "And that's a really small creek."
The crack was nothing more than you might find in a sidewalk, though it stretched the entire distance across the diagonal of the concrete. Xander stood a short distance off, peering through the trees and checking the surrounding area.
"I don't see any tracks, or blood, or dead animals, or anything that would indicate something with the appetite of the thing in the story." He was starting to feel hopeful. Buffy had allowed them only one mystery, and if it turned out to be a campfire tale, all the better.
"If this thing is supernatural," Joanna held out her digital camera, snapping shot after shot of the steps and the foundation. "Then it wouldn't have needed any more of a crack than that, right? And maybe it swallows its prey whole?"
"Could be." Dawn stepped back a bit. "Man, home schooling is looking less and less like such a good thing. I could be home right now, in my own private room with my own private bed, doing math homework."
"In a school on top of the hellmouth." Xander smirked at her. "Cause we both know what a wonderland ride that is."
"Right," Joanna stuck her camera in her pocket. "This esoteric show you guys do? No longer cute. What's a hellmouth?"
"A mouth to hell," Dawn shrugged nonchalantly.
"There was one in our home town in California." Xander kicked aside a bit of snow. "Figures that in a state that would elect the terminator, they'd decide to build the high school right over it. Twice."
"Huh." Joanna started back up the hill. "Wonder if my high school's on one too? That would certainly explain a lot."
"Does your school have an obituary section in the yearbook bigger than the sports section?"
"Nope."
"Any disappearing girls, Frankenstein-wanna-be Biology club members?" Xander stumbled a bit in the snow, but quickly regained his balance.
"Dead kids living under the bathroom?" Dawn grabbed hold of one of the smaller trees as her feet sunk a good six inches into an unexpected drift.
"No." Joanna, used to snow, was having no trouble leading the way back to the car. "But my Spanish teacher might be the devil."
"Well, I can almost definitely promise that your teachers at the Helsing Institute won't be demonically influenced." Xander paused. "Well, not often, at least. Though your computer teacher did once try to destroy the world, but she thought she was doing the right thing."
"Oh yeah," Joanna muttered. "This school of yours keeps getting better and better."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Xander, check this out." Dawn was seated at a microfiche machine tucked into the back corner of the Bethesda library. She had three boxes of film from various local newspapers dating back to the thirties on the desk beside her.
"Whatcha got?" Xander was flipping through more recent, hard copies of the Washington Post, but getting nowhere. The stories of corrupt politicians though, were starting to remind him too much of Mayor Wilkins.
"Three disappearances in Cabin John on January 15th, 1934."
"Okay,"
"And look at these." Dawn handed him several printouts she'd made of other articles. She was starting to run low on dimes.
Xander flipped through the grainy copies. "Two missing, July 8th, 1979. Four in January of 1984. Three in July, '89 . . . ."
"Noticing a pattern?"
Xander glanced at the other dates and headlines. "Every five years, in either January or July. From '79 to '99. Always two to four people, always residents of Cabin John."
"And now again in '34. The records don't go any earlier than that, but I bet the pattern continues back for years."
"There's no way that we're the first to notice this. The pattern is too even."
"Not necessarily. On the edge of a city the size of DC?"
"Still," Xander flipped through the copies once again. "They probably wouldn't blame a supernatural creature though. Did you find anything from the story?"
"Not yet. But think about it. 35 years without the disappearances, with the possible exception of the two robbers in the sixties. From the thirties, right in the middle of the depression, when the woman's husband supposedly built the house, to the end of the seventies, around the time when the story says the woman died."
"Try and find the night of the storm."
Dawn sighed. They'd been at it for hours already, and her eyes were starting to hurt. "Xander, it took me forever just to find this much. It's Sunday evening. Can't we take a break? Even God doesn't work on Sundays."
"And evil never takes a vacation. Damn that evil." Xander shoved his pile of papers away. "Check '64 and '69 at least, see if you can find anything on the robbers."
"Did Willow have any news?" Dawn turned back to her work station.
"Yeah, our next slayer is in Florida. At least we'll be warm."
"Goody for us."
Xander's cell rang, eliciting dirty looks from the nearby librarian. He answered it quickly.
"I got something." It was Joanna. "A couple of the families have been here since the community was built. My mom definitely didn't make the story up."
"We'll meet you back at the tennis courts in about fifteen minutes. We might have something too."
"Okay, but you'd better be quick, and then take me home. Gran's starting to get ornery about how long I've been out."
"Do you have school tomorrow?"
"Nah, MLK Day. I'll meet you guys at the Tastee Diner around noon."
"You don't need a ride?"
"I'll tell Gran I'm meeting a study buddy. I don't think she's too keen on me sticking around you guys for too long, she seems to think you'll steal me away from her."
"Well, since that's the general plan, I'd hate to disappoint her."
There was a long silence on the other end. "If this turns out to be true, that means I have to go with you guys, doesn't it."
"It's up to you, Joanna." Xander scratched at his cheek. His eyes, especially the prosthetic, were beginning to burn as well. "But after awhile, the demons will start homing in on you. I'm not going to lie, your best bet would be to head to Cleveland."
"Right. Bye."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Joanna was bouncing up and down by the time they made it to the tennis courts. She ran at the car before it even pulled to a stop.
"Jesus Christ, I thought you said fifteen minutes!"
Xander shrugged apologetically. "We got lost. A lot. I think we were in Virginia for a little while."
"Whatever, just get me home!" Joanna hopped in, pulling her coat tighter around herself and tucking her hands under her thighs. "What'd ya find?"
Dawn launched into a quick explanation of the five year, January/July pattern. Joanna grimaced.
"Seems that way on this end too. Carl was on the streets in January, '64. And Mrs. Johns said that the reason the land went so cheap to the government was that a lot of the people in the area thought it was cursed. She said that the stories of a monster in the woods go back as far as the eighteenth century." Joanna watched the trees fly by for a moment, then bashed her hand against the window, cracking it. Xander nearly swerved off the road. "Shit!"
"What?" Xander dragged the car back to its rightful place. "What? What?"
"It's January. 2004. I haven't seen any disappearance stories in the paper or anything. Which means . . . ."
"That thing is hungry." Dawn watched out the her window as well, trying to figure out how long it would take to get to the trunk and retrieve their weapons should they be attacked. The sun was setting.
They drove on in silence for awhile, doing a fair bit over the speed limit to get back to the Christenson house. As they pulled up to the curb by the lighted stairs, Joanna finally spoke.
"I'll, um, pay for that window."
end part three
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 1: the Marble Steps
Part Three
"What was it?"
The group at the diner was picking lightly at their now cold burgers. Xander was considering the consequences of helping Joanna find whatever it was in the woods, and of ignoring the problem and just getting her, as well as Dawn and himself, the hell out of there. Joanna was staring at the square she'd marked out in her ketchup while telling the story. Dawn was still caught up in the tale.
"That's just it," Joanna smeared the square away with another french fry. "Mom wouldn't say. I don't think she knew. And Cabin John is as quiet as any metro area community. I guess I always thought that she'd made it up, but when the class project came up, I thought it would be a great idea to look into it. But what if it's real? I mean, if I'm some sort of mystical force of good, does that mean I have to go fight it?"
Xander sighed and slapped his credit card down on top of the bill. It wouldn't be right to leave the thing out there, if it was real. "Not yet, you wouldn't." He looked back up at Joanna, who had tears leaking at the corners of her eyes. "We don't know enough about it, if it does exist, going after it now would be a death sentence. And while there's all sorts of wacky fun to be had in the midst of a battle, there is a sort of process we can follow before we get there. Right now, I suggest you keep working on the project. Research is the key now."
"Damn." Joanna smiled, but it didn't come close to seeming real. "I knew I shouldn't have procrastinated. I was just going to take pictures of the foundation, tell the story to the class, and then bull shit something about how it developed out of a post-war mentality. Hell, I don't even know where to start."
Dawn blinked. "Well, um, grade wise? You could still do that. Xander and I can help on the research front. Though I don't suppose your local library has a very good occult section."
"You guys would–" Joanna rubbed at her eyes. "Hell, I'm still not certain you're not a couple of con artists taking advantage of a confused teen."
"Tell ya what," Xander pulled his coat back on. "We'll head back to Cabin John. Show us this foundation, take whatever pictures you want, then go and interview a couple of residents, if you can. Dawn and I will hit the books, see what we can find out about any supernatural stuff in the area. That way, you can still get the info you need for your project, and don't have to expose yourself too a couple of frauds while you're at it." He tossed her a card with their cellphone number on it, along with a bit of change. "Give us a call when you need a ride back to your place, and we'll set up a meeting time to discuss anything we may have found."
Joanna pocketed the card, but left the change. "I've got a cell. Jesus, I don't know what to think any more. You people really are the masters of mind fuck, aren't you."
"Oh, you don't know the half of it." Xander stood. "You coming?"
"Yeah, I'm in. I don't know what I'm in, but I'm in."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"That's a really small crack." Dawn cocked her head to one side, staring down at the ten foot by ten foot concrete foundation that jutted from the side of the hill. She glanced down the hill. "And that's a really small creek."
The crack was nothing more than you might find in a sidewalk, though it stretched the entire distance across the diagonal of the concrete. Xander stood a short distance off, peering through the trees and checking the surrounding area.
"I don't see any tracks, or blood, or dead animals, or anything that would indicate something with the appetite of the thing in the story." He was starting to feel hopeful. Buffy had allowed them only one mystery, and if it turned out to be a campfire tale, all the better.
"If this thing is supernatural," Joanna held out her digital camera, snapping shot after shot of the steps and the foundation. "Then it wouldn't have needed any more of a crack than that, right? And maybe it swallows its prey whole?"
"Could be." Dawn stepped back a bit. "Man, home schooling is looking less and less like such a good thing. I could be home right now, in my own private room with my own private bed, doing math homework."
"In a school on top of the hellmouth." Xander smirked at her. "Cause we both know what a wonderland ride that is."
"Right," Joanna stuck her camera in her pocket. "This esoteric show you guys do? No longer cute. What's a hellmouth?"
"A mouth to hell," Dawn shrugged nonchalantly.
"There was one in our home town in California." Xander kicked aside a bit of snow. "Figures that in a state that would elect the terminator, they'd decide to build the high school right over it. Twice."
"Huh." Joanna started back up the hill. "Wonder if my high school's on one too? That would certainly explain a lot."
"Does your school have an obituary section in the yearbook bigger than the sports section?"
"Nope."
"Any disappearing girls, Frankenstein-wanna-be Biology club members?" Xander stumbled a bit in the snow, but quickly regained his balance.
"Dead kids living under the bathroom?" Dawn grabbed hold of one of the smaller trees as her feet sunk a good six inches into an unexpected drift.
"No." Joanna, used to snow, was having no trouble leading the way back to the car. "But my Spanish teacher might be the devil."
"Well, I can almost definitely promise that your teachers at the Helsing Institute won't be demonically influenced." Xander paused. "Well, not often, at least. Though your computer teacher did once try to destroy the world, but she thought she was doing the right thing."
"Oh yeah," Joanna muttered. "This school of yours keeps getting better and better."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Xander, check this out." Dawn was seated at a microfiche machine tucked into the back corner of the Bethesda library. She had three boxes of film from various local newspapers dating back to the thirties on the desk beside her.
"Whatcha got?" Xander was flipping through more recent, hard copies of the Washington Post, but getting nowhere. The stories of corrupt politicians though, were starting to remind him too much of Mayor Wilkins.
"Three disappearances in Cabin John on January 15th, 1934."
"Okay,"
"And look at these." Dawn handed him several printouts she'd made of other articles. She was starting to run low on dimes.
Xander flipped through the grainy copies. "Two missing, July 8th, 1979. Four in January of 1984. Three in July, '89 . . . ."
"Noticing a pattern?"
Xander glanced at the other dates and headlines. "Every five years, in either January or July. From '79 to '99. Always two to four people, always residents of Cabin John."
"And now again in '34. The records don't go any earlier than that, but I bet the pattern continues back for years."
"There's no way that we're the first to notice this. The pattern is too even."
"Not necessarily. On the edge of a city the size of DC?"
"Still," Xander flipped through the copies once again. "They probably wouldn't blame a supernatural creature though. Did you find anything from the story?"
"Not yet. But think about it. 35 years without the disappearances, with the possible exception of the two robbers in the sixties. From the thirties, right in the middle of the depression, when the woman's husband supposedly built the house, to the end of the seventies, around the time when the story says the woman died."
"Try and find the night of the storm."
Dawn sighed. They'd been at it for hours already, and her eyes were starting to hurt. "Xander, it took me forever just to find this much. It's Sunday evening. Can't we take a break? Even God doesn't work on Sundays."
"And evil never takes a vacation. Damn that evil." Xander shoved his pile of papers away. "Check '64 and '69 at least, see if you can find anything on the robbers."
"Did Willow have any news?" Dawn turned back to her work station.
"Yeah, our next slayer is in Florida. At least we'll be warm."
"Goody for us."
Xander's cell rang, eliciting dirty looks from the nearby librarian. He answered it quickly.
"I got something." It was Joanna. "A couple of the families have been here since the community was built. My mom definitely didn't make the story up."
"We'll meet you back at the tennis courts in about fifteen minutes. We might have something too."
"Okay, but you'd better be quick, and then take me home. Gran's starting to get ornery about how long I've been out."
"Do you have school tomorrow?"
"Nah, MLK Day. I'll meet you guys at the Tastee Diner around noon."
"You don't need a ride?"
"I'll tell Gran I'm meeting a study buddy. I don't think she's too keen on me sticking around you guys for too long, she seems to think you'll steal me away from her."
"Well, since that's the general plan, I'd hate to disappoint her."
There was a long silence on the other end. "If this turns out to be true, that means I have to go with you guys, doesn't it."
"It's up to you, Joanna." Xander scratched at his cheek. His eyes, especially the prosthetic, were beginning to burn as well. "But after awhile, the demons will start homing in on you. I'm not going to lie, your best bet would be to head to Cleveland."
"Right. Bye."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Joanna was bouncing up and down by the time they made it to the tennis courts. She ran at the car before it even pulled to a stop.
"Jesus Christ, I thought you said fifteen minutes!"
Xander shrugged apologetically. "We got lost. A lot. I think we were in Virginia for a little while."
"Whatever, just get me home!" Joanna hopped in, pulling her coat tighter around herself and tucking her hands under her thighs. "What'd ya find?"
Dawn launched into a quick explanation of the five year, January/July pattern. Joanna grimaced.
"Seems that way on this end too. Carl was on the streets in January, '64. And Mrs. Johns said that the reason the land went so cheap to the government was that a lot of the people in the area thought it was cursed. She said that the stories of a monster in the woods go back as far as the eighteenth century." Joanna watched the trees fly by for a moment, then bashed her hand against the window, cracking it. Xander nearly swerved off the road. "Shit!"
"What?" Xander dragged the car back to its rightful place. "What? What?"
"It's January. 2004. I haven't seen any disappearance stories in the paper or anything. Which means . . . ."
"That thing is hungry." Dawn watched out the her window as well, trying to figure out how long it would take to get to the trunk and retrieve their weapons should they be attacked. The sun was setting.
They drove on in silence for awhile, doing a fair bit over the speed limit to get back to the Christenson house. As they pulled up to the curb by the lighted stairs, Joanna finally spoke.
"I'll, um, pay for that window."
end part three