"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure
Disclaimer: See Part 1.
Part 3: "Two's Company..."
Later that evening Buffy was out on patrol. Well, not exactly on patrol, yet - she was in the main shopping street, looking in the window of a fashion store, wondering if she had enough of her allowance left for a rather attractive top that had been specially reduced in price. Tomorrow was the last day of the Sale.
Across the road a car parked up, but Buffy was so engrossed that she didn't notice the driver approaching until he spoke her name. By the time she realised he was there, and recognised him, it was much too late to slip away into the shadows.
"Evening, sir... um... Agent Mulder. Have you had any luck looking for your friends?" she asked politely.
"Not so far. Nor even a trace of either of their cars".
"I'll keep an eye open, if you like", she offered, not knowing exactly what else she could say, and hoping it would satisfy him. She really didn't want to get into a conversation because she was somewhat overdue at 'The Lawns' cemetery a mile away, where she had arranged to meet Angel. It wouldn't take her long to get there, about three minutes at the speed she could run, but while she was stuck here in the street making small talk with an FBI agent, who knew what the members of the town's undead population might be getting up to?
"I... er... gotta be going. Home. That is... I'm late. I don't want to be grounded, right? Grounded is bad". She waved vaguely in a northeasterly direction and shuffled her feet, hoping he would get the message.
Mulder smiled. A typical SoCal teen, out later than she should be. Small, blonde, lightly built, probably a cheerleader, obviously ditzy. Except for the archery. How on earth could she have broken a hunting bow? He wondered about that, but made no comment.
"Well, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble. Here". He dug in a pocket and handed her a police flyer. "These are the two men who are missing. Can you get your friends at school to take a look? OK?"
"Certainly will, sir. Looking is good", Buffy told him, hoping that was it as she stuffed the leaflet into her jacket.
"Thank you, Miss Summers. Off you go then - I don't want you to be in trouble with your parents".
Buffy made her escape gracefully, and gratefully, walking purposefully away down the street until she was sure she was lost from view, and then cutting down a side alley and racing off across town.
-----
If Fox Mulder had stuck to his original intention of talking to late evening shoppers, of showing them the pictures of his missing colleagues, maybe none of what took place subsequently would ever have happened. But he did, and history was changed. Things, as they say, were never quite the same after that. Not that any of them were aware of it for at least a couple of years. And Buffy herself never found out that, in a way, she was responsible. But then, hey - stuff happens, right? So deal with it.
Instead, Mulder decided to take a walk, to explore the neighbourhood. It wasn't long before he had left the good part of town. The difference was brutally obvious, he could hardly avoid noticing when he entered the bad part - it was almost like stepping over a line. He simply turned the corner into a back street and it was as if he was in a different town altogether. Shabby rundown houses, rubbish-strewn dirty sidewalks, abandoned buildings, poorly dressed scruffy looking people scurrying furtively by who watched him suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes, broken street lights, and the feeling that someone, or something, was following him. As he walked through the maze of narrow alleyways, a couple of times he stepped back into the shadows and watched to see if any pursuer would show themselves, but there were no anonymous footsteps that stopped when he did, no nondescript figures showing an unusual interest in dusty, flyblown shop windows just down the street.
Even so, he was strangely thankful when, a short while later, he emerged into what he thought at first was a park. That was until he realised it contained more than just pathways, trees and bushes. And that it was in fact one of the most densely populated parts of town. No voters or taxpayers living here though, just the previous inhabitants of Sunnydale, quietly sleeping until the Last Trump should tell them all it was time to Rise-And-Shine.
However cemeteries had never bothered Mulder, and he strolled past the tidy rows of headstones, crypts and mausolea, glancing with genuine interest at the names. Wilkins (two of them, father and son by the look of it), Alpert ('any relation to Herb, and his Tijuana Brass?' he wondered), Flutie. It was all as good a way as any of familiarising himself with the place. After all, one had to be aware of the local names, didn't one?
The thought of all the deceased at rest didn't disturb him one little bit, nor the darkness, or the quiet. No, it wasn't that at all.
It was the hand on his shoulder.
-----
Buffy finally unpeeled herself reluctantly from her boyfriend.
"Sorry. I was delayed by the FBI guy who's in town searching for his missing buddies. He wanted me to take a look at their pictures".
"Well, the word is they aren't missing any more", Angel said. "But he's not going to be very pleased when he finds them".
"Huh? Why not? Something happened to them? Are they dead?"
"Sort of", Angel said. "I think you know what I mean. I reckon we'd better try and find them before he does. Or worse - they find him. Got your stake?"
"Don't leave home without it", Buffy quipped, tossing it into the air and catching it again.
"OK, then. We'd better get to them before they 'persuade' him to change sides like they have. The last thing you want in Sunnydale is three FBI trained vamps".
"Two's company, three's a crowd, as Giles would say", Buffy said with a grin. "Where do you think we should start? I left Agent Mouldy safe on Main Street a little over a quarter hour ago".
"I don't think we need to go that far", Angel told her, pointing over towards the other side of the cemetery.
-----
Mulder spun round, heart suddenly racing, his hand automatically going to the holster on his belt.
"I hear you're looking for us", one of the figures in the shadows said. "I guess the office was wondering what happened. Well they needn't have worried - we're fine".
"In fact, it's a good thing we found you", the other one said. "We're onto something interesting here, and we need an extra body. Geddit? Extra body?"
"In fact, that's why we've gone under cover. We daren't show ourselves in the daytime - it's not safe".
Mulder smiled a little thinly, and relaxed somewhat. He thought he really must see if he could submit a new sub-paragraph for incorporation into the FBI training manual - something about levity while out on operations in the field. Could be distracting. And potentially fatal.
"What have you got? I did a check on the town before I flew out from Washington, and it's a really peculiar place. Have you got any idea what is going on here?"
"You're Mulder, aren't you? We've heard about you. They call you Spooky".
Mulder sighed, and nodded. He really hated that nickname.
"It's just a joke", he told them.
"And you're assigned to the X-Files, right? Aliens and flying saucers, and stuff. Is that what you think it is?" the other figure said. For some reason Mulder couldn't fathom, the man sounded as if he was trying not to laugh, though not really trying very hard. Mulder had heard the tone of voice before, and quietly gritted his teeth.
"Well, to be honest, we do know what's strange about Sunnydale" said the first one. "We both found out pretty quickly, but I don't think you're going to like it".
"No, you're really not going to like it...", the second person said quietly, "...not one tiny little bit", and stepped forward into the light from the lamp post a few yards along the path. Mulder had just a couple of seconds to see his face before everything suddenly seemed to happen at once.
END OF PART 3. TO BE CONTINUED...