Addendum to the author's note: that's right, Dawn is actually checking www.weirdus.com for info on our Bunnyman. So, if you wanna see the creepiest darn bunny-suit EVER, check it out.
Roads Less Traveled
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 6: The Sad Tale of Bunnyman
Part Two
"I told you so."
"Yes, you did."
"I had a feeling."
"I know, Dawn." Xander sighed and stretched, turning off the TV as it became clear that he wouldn't be able to find any news at this time of night. "You're a wise girl, smarter than I'll ever be, and I'll never doubt you again."
"Damn right." Dawn smirked, then began tapping her fingers on her laptop. "Come on . . . . Damned dial-up."
"Found anything?"
"Maybe." Dawn frowned. "Woah."
"What?"
"Check out the picture."
Dawn sat cross-legged on her bed, the laptop perched on her knees. Xander crossed to sit next to her, and she adjusted the screen so that he could see.
The image was of a person in a Bugs Bunny-ish costume, holding an inflatable carrot and an axe. It was the eyes of the mask, large, red and snake-like, that caught his attention. "Gyah." Xander sat back with a sad smile. "I hope Anya never saw that picture."
Dawn looked up at him, returning his smile. "Do you think that was really her? In the dream, I mean?"
Xander sighed. "I don't know. I guess, since we both saw her. I was kinda hoping though–" He stood, running his hands through his hair. "I was hoping she'd be somewhere that she wouldn't have to care, you know? Like . . . like Buffy was."
Dawn grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Maybe she doesn't have to." Xander shot her a look and she shrugged. "But maybe she cares anyway."
Xander smiled again, and squeezed back. After a moment he decided they'd done enough moping, and gestured back to the demonic bunny on the website. "So, what we got?"
Dawn readjusted the laptop screen, her business-like watcher demeanor returning. "Not much." She pointed to a headline. "This is about an axe murderer in a bunny-costume . . ." She scrolled through, the image disappearing at the top of the screen. "'Nother bunny costume murderer, a kid this time . . . . Ah. No, that's pretty much what the article said." Dawn closed the window. "Escaped psycho, eating rabbits, killing teenagers."
"Did you check any newspaper articles?"
"Just about to, but I'm thinking ghost."
"Mm." Xander leaned back. "Dunno. Ghosts are pretty much non-corporeal, like the First. Unless they're possessing someone."
"You talking from experience?"
"Not personal, I only got possessed by a hyena, and they're not exactly native to Northern Virginia."
"Or Southern California,"
"If it was hyenas, those kids would have been eaten, not gutted and hanged. Buffy and Angel got ghost-possessed once, though. Junior year. It's a possibility."
"I'll keep checking, then."
"Right." Xander glanced over to his bed. "And I'll . . ."
"Relax. We've only got one laptop, and we can't go asking around for another couple hours, at least until sunrise." Dawn smiled. "Read, or take a nap. One of us is gonna have to be rested." Her grin took on smirk-tones. "'Sides, you read slow enough anyway, and you promised me a discussion when you're done."
Xander stuck his tongue out at her back.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander snagged a donut from the continental breakfast and shoved it into his mouth to grab two cups of coffee. He sat down across from Dawn, who was tapping her notes from the night's research, and handed her one of the styrofoam cups. She immediately gulped down half of it, black.
"Easy there, Tiger." Xander grimaced. He'd gotten a good five hours in, but Dawn's expression clearly said she'd been up all night. "Maybe you should take a nap."
"Nah, I'm good." Dawn hid a yawn with her cup. "I'm young and filled with energy. All nighters are par for the course." She frowned. "What the hell does that mean, 'par for the course'?"
Xander bit his donut, then shoved the bite into his cheek so he could talk. "It's a golf thing."
Dawn stared at him. He resumed chewing.
"Right." Dawn looked back down at her notes. "Thanks."
Xander smiled, his mouth still full of donut-y goodness. "No problem. Whatcha got?"
"Well, the newspaper articles didn't reveal much, just that it's happened before. Different number of victims, sometimes, and no pattern that I can see. But I looked up the so-called 'Bunnyman's records."
"And how did you do that?"
Dawn grinned, looking more than a little evil. "Willow taught me a LOT about computers."
"You're going to get us arrested, you know that?"
"Please, these days even the most rudimentary file-sharers know about ISP blocking."
Xander blinked. "Right, then, continue."
"Well, according to his file at the state mental hospital, he didn't actually have any record of mental illness before the incident at the bridge." Dawn pointed to a spot on her notes, though she knew Xander couldn't read them from his angle. "A touch of insomnia, but really, who hasn't suffered from that?"
"So the whole escaped psycho in the woods story is . . . ?"
"Complete bunk. Probably added later for spook value. Though god knows that it's even creepier to think that he WENT insane there, instead of starting out that way." Dawn look up at him. "I'm still thinking along the lines of 'ghost'. Though the ghost of what, I'm not sure. The Bunnyman wasn't the first to string people up, he just got away with it the longest. The earliest one I could find was back in the eighties, but I might find some more if I check hard copy records. They didn't put THAT much online."
Xander nodded. "If we're right on the 'ghost' theory, then there probably is some sort of pattern to be found. Though the different numbers of victims is weird. If I remember correctly, the ghost at Sunnydale was making people repeat EXACTLY what had happened to him. Or them. There might have been two ghosts. But it was exact. Down to the letter, the words they spoke, the method and number of deaths."
"But if it isn't a ghost, what is it?"
"No idea." Xander finished off his donut and grabbed for his cooling coffee. "Maybe it has something to do with the rabbits."
"Right." Dawn rolled her eyes. "Rabbits are possessing people and making them kill each other." She blinked. "Oh god, do you think that's what's happening?"
Xander shrugged. "It's a . . . rather remote . . . possibility. But what else would have gotten Anya freaked enough to send us a message about it? She was very much spooked by bunnies."
Dawn giggled. "Oh yeah. Remember when the musical thing was going on? You guys said that she had a whole solo on why bunnies are evil."
Xander grinned. "Yep. She was humming it for weeks afterward. If rabbits are involved than this case would be right up her alley."
Dawn closed her notebook. "Okay, so we've got either a ghost, or psychotic bunnies. What now? Should we call Carmella, get her in on the case?"
Xander shook his head. "I don't think that's a great idea. Let's figure out what this is, and if we need the extra ooomph, then we disturb her. It's gonna take a bit before she'll be willing to speak to us again." He slumped a little further in his seat. "I can't imagine what it was like for her, her body going nuts on her like that? And having to go to a clinic,"
"She's okay, now." Dawn smiled softly. "We had to do the spell, or we never would have made it out of Sunnydale, any of us. Besides, think of how much safer the world is going to be, with that many slayers running around. Carmella will come around."
Xander forced himself to cheer up. "Of course she will. As for our bunny problem, what say we go check out the scene of the crime, see if you catch any more woogy feelings that might give us a hint about what's going on?"
"Sounds like a plan."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
". . . or maybe not . . . ." Dawn stared through the trees at the yards of yellow tape surrounding the bridge and the creek. "How are we going to avoid all the police?"
"This IS a crime scene," Xander frowned. "Maybe we should start a little further back in the trees."
"I guess." Dawn shrugged. "It's not like we're going to find anything the police don't, unless it's supernatural. But I really want to get a closer look at that bridge."
"We'll have to wait a bit, for that, I think."
Dawn yawned, then glanced around. "Right, then." She set off toward the left, crunching through the leaves. After a moment she realized her footsteps were the only ones she heard. She turned to see Xander still standing where he'd been, watching her. "Xander?"
"I really think you should get some sleep, Dawn."
"I'm fine." Dawn crossed her arms. "I wanna figure this out."
"I do, too, but we're not going to get very far if you're completely exhausted."
Dawn snorted. "Fine, you stand around there, looking dumb, and I'll take my 'completely exhausted' butt off into the trees and find something interesting."
"Dawn–"
"I'm not a kid, Xander. I KNOW what I'm capable of."
"Of course you do, Dawn, but that's not the . . . ." Xander let his voice trail off as Dawn spun around again and continued marching off. "Point." He growled lightly to himself, then moved to follow. "I'm beginning to understand why Giles was always so huffy in highschool. Kids these days show NO respect."
Dawn heard Xander moving to follow her and stepped up the pace. There was no way she was going to let him boss her around. She'd had enough of that from her "holier-than-thou" older sister, thank you very much, and now that they were on the road together, she would have thought that he'd have realized that she could take care of herself. If he was going to be like that then she'd just have to prove to him how mature she really was. Even if it meant stalking off in a rather immature huff.
She was moving easily through the close set trees and bushes, obviously a great deal faster than Xander was, as she heard his footsteps fading into the distance. It was, she decided, rather easy to get through the foliage once you knew how to identify the breaks in the branches. You just had to know what to look for. It was with a smug smile that she realized how quickly she was picking up on that. She'd spent her entire life in cities and small towns, not exactly wilderness central, but she obviously knew how to get around in the woods. Except she was making way too much noise.
She slowed down a bit, to see if she could figure out how to walk without crunching.
After a few experiments, she realized that the trouble was she couldn't feel what she was stepping on through her shoes. If she could do that, she'd be able to avoid the sticks and dried leaves that cracked and crumpled beneath her weight, and sent all the animals scattering. She wanted to get closer to the animals, that was why they were out here, wasn't it? She'd just have to go barefoot. She bent down to take off her shoes.
Xander's footsteps were moving in completely the wrong direction, down the hill toward the creek, not across it like she was. Once her shoes were off she tied the laces to each other and slung them over her shoulder. It wouldn't do to leave them out in the woods like this, that was tantamount to polluting, wasn't it? As a Southern Californian, she knew how to take care of the environment. She set off again, pleased with how much less noise her bare feet were making on the ground. She rolled the ball of her foot just before taking each step, moving it further along if she felt anything that would make a sound. She quickly settled into the rhythm of it, and was moving even faster than she had before.
Dawn smiled broadly. She was pretty sure she could even RUN without making a sound.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander stopped and cursed when he realized that he couldn't hear Dawn's footsteps any more. There was no sign of her in any direction. Buffy was going to kill him when she found out he'd lost her sister.
Maybe he had been a little too patronizing, but he was worried. He remembered only too well what it was like to try and function for very long without any sleep. The dream had come very quickly after they'd both gone to bed, which meant that odds were, Dawn had only a half an hour under her belt, and this after they'd driven practically all night to get here from Gainesville, and the confrontation with Carmella . . . . He himself was not operating on full throttle, he could only imagine what toll the lack of sleep was taking on Dawn.
On the other hand, she was right, she did know her body better than he did. Maybe she really was okay for a little walk in the woods. A walk in the same woods where at least three people had gone psycho and decided it was a good idea to gut drunken teenagers.
Crap, he had to find her.
He took stock of his position, and finally decided his best bet was to head down to the creek. That way he could get a pretty good view of the bridge, hopefully without the police spotting him, and hopefully catch sight of Dawn while he was at it. He set off again through the close-set trees and low lying bushes, the sunlight filtering through the bare branches above him, and wondered briefly why he was getting such a strong sense of Deja Vu.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
She smirked to herself as she watched him look around. He was scrunching up his face, and yelling something at the trees as he walked toward the water. She kept pace with him easily, watching him through the leaves of the bushes and ferns. She'd just eaten, and now was simply enjoying the thrill of stalking him through the woods. He stepped out onto the bank of the creek, still yelling.
Fool. Didn't he know you had to silent to find anything in the woods?
She was startled by a strange pinging noise that definitely didn't belong in there. The man pulled something out of his pocket, a strange, brightly colored object, and began talking to it. She frowned. So far he hadn't done anything to hurt the woods, but she suspected it wouldn't be long before he did. She had to stop him.
She reached into her pocket and her bloody fingers closed on something cool and mineral. She pulled it out, and after a bit of sniffing and investigation unfolded a blade. It was small, and a bit dull, but it would have to do. She crept closer, but froze when he turned back toward the woods, looking toward her position. He called out again and she flinched.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander started a little ins surprise when his cell-phone rang. A glace at the read-out proved that it was not, as he hoped, Dawn calling him to let him know where she was, but a local number. The only person who could be calling that was Carmella.
"Xander Harris," He glanced around, still hoping to catch sight of Dawn.
"Look, I'm still mad at you guys,"
"Understandable."
"But, um, I think the slayer thing? I had a dream. A really weird one."
Xander frowned. "What about?"
"The Bunnyman Bridge. There was some woman there, she told me I had to call you. I thought it was just a weirdo dream, but then I saw the paper this morning, about the murders, and the kid who killed himself?"
"Yeah." Xander blinked. "What kid who killed himself?"
"They found him this morning. They're pretty sure he was the one who did it. The woman in the dream, she said I had to help you guys. That you were going to look into it."
"Well, if it's anything supernatural, that's kind of our job." Xander sighed. "The woman, what did she look like?"
"I dunno, cute, I guess, blonde. Curly hair. She had a really weird way of talking, very formal. And kind of literal."
Jesus, did Anya think he could do anything right? "Well, Anya was never the most subtle."
"Anya? Is that her name? Look, anyway, I really don't want to get into this stuff, I just want to go back to being me, you know? But . . . do you guys need help?"
"Yeah, I–" Xander stopped. He wasn't sure what he'd heard, or if he'd heard anything, but he was positive that there was something behind him, at the edge of the woods.
"You there?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, look, I'm kind of in a bind right now, and . . . ."
Xander's eyes widened as he caught sight of a flash of purple in the bushes. The same purple color as Dawn's shirt, only grittier, and slightly bloody. "Dawn?!"
There was a flash of purple again, and of long, brown hair, and something slammed into him, sending him tumbling backward into the creek. Something cold and metal bit into his skin at his clavicle, just above the collar of his shirt. The cellphone went flying, and by the splash he suspected that it wouldn't be working again.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
She tackled the man into the water, and spotted the colored thing splash down a few feet further on. She growled. He was trying to hurt the woods. She pressed down harder on the blade, smiling as it drew a small spot of crimson from his chest.
He struggled against her, his eyes wide and shocked, and as his hand pressed against her face, trying to push her away, she bit it. He shouted something, then his other hand was moving, and it smashed against her temple before she could stop it. She toppled over sideways into the water as the world turned black.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander shoved himself to his knees and yanked Dawn's head up before she could drown in the creek. Her eyes were closed and he could see the red mark his fist had caused. It was definitely going to bruise.
What worried him more were the bits of blood and fur that covered her fingers, and the wild animal look that had been in her eyes when she'd attacked him. He knew that look very well, he'd seen it in the eyes of four of his classmates and, he suspected, he'd warn that look himself. Dawn was possessed, and it wasn't by any human ghost. He lifted her up, wincing only slightly as it pulled on the small but deep cut at the base of his neck. He was pretty sure they had some ropes and chains in the car, but it would be tough to get back into the hotel without someone suspecting him of doing something very, very wrong to the girl.
He was going to have to tie her up in the car, and hope that he figured out how to reverse whatever the possession was before someone found them. Or, he realized, as he dug into Dawn's pocket for her cell phone, hoping it hadn't gotten too wet, he could call Carmella. She was still standoffish, but if anyone knew of someplace he could take Dawn, she would be it.
Buffy was most definitely going to kill him.
End part two
Roads Less Traveled
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 6: The Sad Tale of Bunnyman
Part Two
"I told you so."
"Yes, you did."
"I had a feeling."
"I know, Dawn." Xander sighed and stretched, turning off the TV as it became clear that he wouldn't be able to find any news at this time of night. "You're a wise girl, smarter than I'll ever be, and I'll never doubt you again."
"Damn right." Dawn smirked, then began tapping her fingers on her laptop. "Come on . . . . Damned dial-up."
"Found anything?"
"Maybe." Dawn frowned. "Woah."
"What?"
"Check out the picture."
Dawn sat cross-legged on her bed, the laptop perched on her knees. Xander crossed to sit next to her, and she adjusted the screen so that he could see.
The image was of a person in a Bugs Bunny-ish costume, holding an inflatable carrot and an axe. It was the eyes of the mask, large, red and snake-like, that caught his attention. "Gyah." Xander sat back with a sad smile. "I hope Anya never saw that picture."
Dawn looked up at him, returning his smile. "Do you think that was really her? In the dream, I mean?"
Xander sighed. "I don't know. I guess, since we both saw her. I was kinda hoping though–" He stood, running his hands through his hair. "I was hoping she'd be somewhere that she wouldn't have to care, you know? Like . . . like Buffy was."
Dawn grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Maybe she doesn't have to." Xander shot her a look and she shrugged. "But maybe she cares anyway."
Xander smiled again, and squeezed back. After a moment he decided they'd done enough moping, and gestured back to the demonic bunny on the website. "So, what we got?"
Dawn readjusted the laptop screen, her business-like watcher demeanor returning. "Not much." She pointed to a headline. "This is about an axe murderer in a bunny-costume . . ." She scrolled through, the image disappearing at the top of the screen. "'Nother bunny costume murderer, a kid this time . . . . Ah. No, that's pretty much what the article said." Dawn closed the window. "Escaped psycho, eating rabbits, killing teenagers."
"Did you check any newspaper articles?"
"Just about to, but I'm thinking ghost."
"Mm." Xander leaned back. "Dunno. Ghosts are pretty much non-corporeal, like the First. Unless they're possessing someone."
"You talking from experience?"
"Not personal, I only got possessed by a hyena, and they're not exactly native to Northern Virginia."
"Or Southern California,"
"If it was hyenas, those kids would have been eaten, not gutted and hanged. Buffy and Angel got ghost-possessed once, though. Junior year. It's a possibility."
"I'll keep checking, then."
"Right." Xander glanced over to his bed. "And I'll . . ."
"Relax. We've only got one laptop, and we can't go asking around for another couple hours, at least until sunrise." Dawn smiled. "Read, or take a nap. One of us is gonna have to be rested." Her grin took on smirk-tones. "'Sides, you read slow enough anyway, and you promised me a discussion when you're done."
Xander stuck his tongue out at her back.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander snagged a donut from the continental breakfast and shoved it into his mouth to grab two cups of coffee. He sat down across from Dawn, who was tapping her notes from the night's research, and handed her one of the styrofoam cups. She immediately gulped down half of it, black.
"Easy there, Tiger." Xander grimaced. He'd gotten a good five hours in, but Dawn's expression clearly said she'd been up all night. "Maybe you should take a nap."
"Nah, I'm good." Dawn hid a yawn with her cup. "I'm young and filled with energy. All nighters are par for the course." She frowned. "What the hell does that mean, 'par for the course'?"
Xander bit his donut, then shoved the bite into his cheek so he could talk. "It's a golf thing."
Dawn stared at him. He resumed chewing.
"Right." Dawn looked back down at her notes. "Thanks."
Xander smiled, his mouth still full of donut-y goodness. "No problem. Whatcha got?"
"Well, the newspaper articles didn't reveal much, just that it's happened before. Different number of victims, sometimes, and no pattern that I can see. But I looked up the so-called 'Bunnyman's records."
"And how did you do that?"
Dawn grinned, looking more than a little evil. "Willow taught me a LOT about computers."
"You're going to get us arrested, you know that?"
"Please, these days even the most rudimentary file-sharers know about ISP blocking."
Xander blinked. "Right, then, continue."
"Well, according to his file at the state mental hospital, he didn't actually have any record of mental illness before the incident at the bridge." Dawn pointed to a spot on her notes, though she knew Xander couldn't read them from his angle. "A touch of insomnia, but really, who hasn't suffered from that?"
"So the whole escaped psycho in the woods story is . . . ?"
"Complete bunk. Probably added later for spook value. Though god knows that it's even creepier to think that he WENT insane there, instead of starting out that way." Dawn look up at him. "I'm still thinking along the lines of 'ghost'. Though the ghost of what, I'm not sure. The Bunnyman wasn't the first to string people up, he just got away with it the longest. The earliest one I could find was back in the eighties, but I might find some more if I check hard copy records. They didn't put THAT much online."
Xander nodded. "If we're right on the 'ghost' theory, then there probably is some sort of pattern to be found. Though the different numbers of victims is weird. If I remember correctly, the ghost at Sunnydale was making people repeat EXACTLY what had happened to him. Or them. There might have been two ghosts. But it was exact. Down to the letter, the words they spoke, the method and number of deaths."
"But if it isn't a ghost, what is it?"
"No idea." Xander finished off his donut and grabbed for his cooling coffee. "Maybe it has something to do with the rabbits."
"Right." Dawn rolled her eyes. "Rabbits are possessing people and making them kill each other." She blinked. "Oh god, do you think that's what's happening?"
Xander shrugged. "It's a . . . rather remote . . . possibility. But what else would have gotten Anya freaked enough to send us a message about it? She was very much spooked by bunnies."
Dawn giggled. "Oh yeah. Remember when the musical thing was going on? You guys said that she had a whole solo on why bunnies are evil."
Xander grinned. "Yep. She was humming it for weeks afterward. If rabbits are involved than this case would be right up her alley."
Dawn closed her notebook. "Okay, so we've got either a ghost, or psychotic bunnies. What now? Should we call Carmella, get her in on the case?"
Xander shook his head. "I don't think that's a great idea. Let's figure out what this is, and if we need the extra ooomph, then we disturb her. It's gonna take a bit before she'll be willing to speak to us again." He slumped a little further in his seat. "I can't imagine what it was like for her, her body going nuts on her like that? And having to go to a clinic,"
"She's okay, now." Dawn smiled softly. "We had to do the spell, or we never would have made it out of Sunnydale, any of us. Besides, think of how much safer the world is going to be, with that many slayers running around. Carmella will come around."
Xander forced himself to cheer up. "Of course she will. As for our bunny problem, what say we go check out the scene of the crime, see if you catch any more woogy feelings that might give us a hint about what's going on?"
"Sounds like a plan."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
". . . or maybe not . . . ." Dawn stared through the trees at the yards of yellow tape surrounding the bridge and the creek. "How are we going to avoid all the police?"
"This IS a crime scene," Xander frowned. "Maybe we should start a little further back in the trees."
"I guess." Dawn shrugged. "It's not like we're going to find anything the police don't, unless it's supernatural. But I really want to get a closer look at that bridge."
"We'll have to wait a bit, for that, I think."
Dawn yawned, then glanced around. "Right, then." She set off toward the left, crunching through the leaves. After a moment she realized her footsteps were the only ones she heard. She turned to see Xander still standing where he'd been, watching her. "Xander?"
"I really think you should get some sleep, Dawn."
"I'm fine." Dawn crossed her arms. "I wanna figure this out."
"I do, too, but we're not going to get very far if you're completely exhausted."
Dawn snorted. "Fine, you stand around there, looking dumb, and I'll take my 'completely exhausted' butt off into the trees and find something interesting."
"Dawn–"
"I'm not a kid, Xander. I KNOW what I'm capable of."
"Of course you do, Dawn, but that's not the . . . ." Xander let his voice trail off as Dawn spun around again and continued marching off. "Point." He growled lightly to himself, then moved to follow. "I'm beginning to understand why Giles was always so huffy in highschool. Kids these days show NO respect."
Dawn heard Xander moving to follow her and stepped up the pace. There was no way she was going to let him boss her around. She'd had enough of that from her "holier-than-thou" older sister, thank you very much, and now that they were on the road together, she would have thought that he'd have realized that she could take care of herself. If he was going to be like that then she'd just have to prove to him how mature she really was. Even if it meant stalking off in a rather immature huff.
She was moving easily through the close set trees and bushes, obviously a great deal faster than Xander was, as she heard his footsteps fading into the distance. It was, she decided, rather easy to get through the foliage once you knew how to identify the breaks in the branches. You just had to know what to look for. It was with a smug smile that she realized how quickly she was picking up on that. She'd spent her entire life in cities and small towns, not exactly wilderness central, but she obviously knew how to get around in the woods. Except she was making way too much noise.
She slowed down a bit, to see if she could figure out how to walk without crunching.
After a few experiments, she realized that the trouble was she couldn't feel what she was stepping on through her shoes. If she could do that, she'd be able to avoid the sticks and dried leaves that cracked and crumpled beneath her weight, and sent all the animals scattering. She wanted to get closer to the animals, that was why they were out here, wasn't it? She'd just have to go barefoot. She bent down to take off her shoes.
Xander's footsteps were moving in completely the wrong direction, down the hill toward the creek, not across it like she was. Once her shoes were off she tied the laces to each other and slung them over her shoulder. It wouldn't do to leave them out in the woods like this, that was tantamount to polluting, wasn't it? As a Southern Californian, she knew how to take care of the environment. She set off again, pleased with how much less noise her bare feet were making on the ground. She rolled the ball of her foot just before taking each step, moving it further along if she felt anything that would make a sound. She quickly settled into the rhythm of it, and was moving even faster than she had before.
Dawn smiled broadly. She was pretty sure she could even RUN without making a sound.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander stopped and cursed when he realized that he couldn't hear Dawn's footsteps any more. There was no sign of her in any direction. Buffy was going to kill him when she found out he'd lost her sister.
Maybe he had been a little too patronizing, but he was worried. He remembered only too well what it was like to try and function for very long without any sleep. The dream had come very quickly after they'd both gone to bed, which meant that odds were, Dawn had only a half an hour under her belt, and this after they'd driven practically all night to get here from Gainesville, and the confrontation with Carmella . . . . He himself was not operating on full throttle, he could only imagine what toll the lack of sleep was taking on Dawn.
On the other hand, she was right, she did know her body better than he did. Maybe she really was okay for a little walk in the woods. A walk in the same woods where at least three people had gone psycho and decided it was a good idea to gut drunken teenagers.
Crap, he had to find her.
He took stock of his position, and finally decided his best bet was to head down to the creek. That way he could get a pretty good view of the bridge, hopefully without the police spotting him, and hopefully catch sight of Dawn while he was at it. He set off again through the close-set trees and low lying bushes, the sunlight filtering through the bare branches above him, and wondered briefly why he was getting such a strong sense of Deja Vu.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
She smirked to herself as she watched him look around. He was scrunching up his face, and yelling something at the trees as he walked toward the water. She kept pace with him easily, watching him through the leaves of the bushes and ferns. She'd just eaten, and now was simply enjoying the thrill of stalking him through the woods. He stepped out onto the bank of the creek, still yelling.
Fool. Didn't he know you had to silent to find anything in the woods?
She was startled by a strange pinging noise that definitely didn't belong in there. The man pulled something out of his pocket, a strange, brightly colored object, and began talking to it. She frowned. So far he hadn't done anything to hurt the woods, but she suspected it wouldn't be long before he did. She had to stop him.
She reached into her pocket and her bloody fingers closed on something cool and mineral. She pulled it out, and after a bit of sniffing and investigation unfolded a blade. It was small, and a bit dull, but it would have to do. She crept closer, but froze when he turned back toward the woods, looking toward her position. He called out again and she flinched.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander started a little ins surprise when his cell-phone rang. A glace at the read-out proved that it was not, as he hoped, Dawn calling him to let him know where she was, but a local number. The only person who could be calling that was Carmella.
"Xander Harris," He glanced around, still hoping to catch sight of Dawn.
"Look, I'm still mad at you guys,"
"Understandable."
"But, um, I think the slayer thing? I had a dream. A really weird one."
Xander frowned. "What about?"
"The Bunnyman Bridge. There was some woman there, she told me I had to call you. I thought it was just a weirdo dream, but then I saw the paper this morning, about the murders, and the kid who killed himself?"
"Yeah." Xander blinked. "What kid who killed himself?"
"They found him this morning. They're pretty sure he was the one who did it. The woman in the dream, she said I had to help you guys. That you were going to look into it."
"Well, if it's anything supernatural, that's kind of our job." Xander sighed. "The woman, what did she look like?"
"I dunno, cute, I guess, blonde. Curly hair. She had a really weird way of talking, very formal. And kind of literal."
Jesus, did Anya think he could do anything right? "Well, Anya was never the most subtle."
"Anya? Is that her name? Look, anyway, I really don't want to get into this stuff, I just want to go back to being me, you know? But . . . do you guys need help?"
"Yeah, I–" Xander stopped. He wasn't sure what he'd heard, or if he'd heard anything, but he was positive that there was something behind him, at the edge of the woods.
"You there?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, look, I'm kind of in a bind right now, and . . . ."
Xander's eyes widened as he caught sight of a flash of purple in the bushes. The same purple color as Dawn's shirt, only grittier, and slightly bloody. "Dawn?!"
There was a flash of purple again, and of long, brown hair, and something slammed into him, sending him tumbling backward into the creek. Something cold and metal bit into his skin at his clavicle, just above the collar of his shirt. The cellphone went flying, and by the splash he suspected that it wouldn't be working again.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
She tackled the man into the water, and spotted the colored thing splash down a few feet further on. She growled. He was trying to hurt the woods. She pressed down harder on the blade, smiling as it drew a small spot of crimson from his chest.
He struggled against her, his eyes wide and shocked, and as his hand pressed against her face, trying to push her away, she bit it. He shouted something, then his other hand was moving, and it smashed against her temple before she could stop it. She toppled over sideways into the water as the world turned black.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Xander shoved himself to his knees and yanked Dawn's head up before she could drown in the creek. Her eyes were closed and he could see the red mark his fist had caused. It was definitely going to bruise.
What worried him more were the bits of blood and fur that covered her fingers, and the wild animal look that had been in her eyes when she'd attacked him. He knew that look very well, he'd seen it in the eyes of four of his classmates and, he suspected, he'd warn that look himself. Dawn was possessed, and it wasn't by any human ghost. He lifted her up, wincing only slightly as it pulled on the small but deep cut at the base of his neck. He was pretty sure they had some ropes and chains in the car, but it would be tough to get back into the hotel without someone suspecting him of doing something very, very wrong to the girl.
He was going to have to tie her up in the car, and hope that he figured out how to reverse whatever the possession was before someone found them. Or, he realized, as he dug into Dawn's pocket for her cell phone, hoping it hadn't gotten too wet, he could call Carmella. She was still standoffish, but if anyone knew of someplace he could take Dawn, she would be it.
Buffy was most definitely going to kill him.
End part two