Chapter Nineteen:
Safe for the Moment
The sun was rising and the world was tinted blue. If it weren't for the acrid scent of smoke and fire and ash, they might've been able to smell the sweet smell that only morning could deliver. The building wasn't quite so dark anymore. There was no more accidentally bumping into things like chairs and tables and desks. He even thought it might be safe to descend the stairs. So he did. And it was.
Xander looked at the roll of duct tape he had been clutching so tightly his hand was white for the last hour of the night, hoping against hope that the zombies wouldn't burst in to munch on the tasty morsel that he was to them. The part he had been clutching had a hand-shaped impression and was slick with sweat. He assumed the roll was new because he couldn't see a single uneven tear on it.
He had looked out the window upstairs less than five minutes ago. There weren't any zombies outside for the moment, so he had decided to go out. He figured it would be safe to go downstairs because he hadn't heard the splintering crack that would signal the entrance of the zombies.
Opening the door to the outside of the nightmare he had trapped himself in, he listened. He could hear footsteps, but they were slow footsteps. He had watched the zombies and seen that, even when there was no one around to feed on, they ran. He heard a familiar voice. A female voice. Then a male's voice that he didn't remember ever hearing before. Xander was quite glad that there were other survivors. He could band with them and go to the mess hall tent to gather the others.
A few seconds later Xander was headed in the direction of the footsteps and Buffy, Lorne, and Gwen were rounding the corner to come face to face with him. They all jumped and then laughed.
"Xander!" Buffy shouted and embraced him. Xander smiled. "We've been looking for you."
Gwen was looking behind them, keeping watch for more of the zombies she had heard about. She wasn't worried; she knew the first one to show its rotted face would be flash-fried. She knew that because her mind was poised to do the flash-frying.
Xander looked at Gwen and assumed she was another one of the Slayers.
Buffy stepped away from Xander and then introduced him to Gwen. All the while she was keeping a watchful eye. And a tired eye. None of them had slept for the entire, endless night, and the adrenaline rushes were losing their effects. If they didn't get sleep soon then they would collapse on the battlefield. Or they would get mauled by zombies due to poor vision and sluggish actions. Buffy told Xander about how Gwen had appeared and Gwen filled him in with her story.
"Huh," Xander said. "I've heard and seen stranger things, but this still ranks up pretty high on the scale." That's when Xander realized there were just three in the group: the green demon (who Xander had heard about and knew went by the name of Lorne), Buffy, and Gwen. He knew that the others weren't dead, otherwise the group wouldn't be so light-hearted. So he asked where the others were.
"They're back at the cafeteria, err, mess hall tent," the exhausted Buffy replied. For some reason she had just thought she was in high school again. Sunnydale High. The one she had blown up to kill the Mayor, who had turned into an untainted demon during graduation. The feeling passed abruptly. She couldn't believe how long ago that had been. Six years. That was a fourth of her life ago.
"Okay," Xander said. "I'm gonna go there. Tape the wounds." He held up the roll of duct tape. Buffy nodded.
"Hurry," she ordered. Dawn hadn't been bleeding as much when she had left, but that wasn't necessarily good. She could be running out of blood to bleed.
Xander hurried back the way that the trio had come. It was a good ten minute walk and he was worrying that he would be too late the entire time. And he was so tired.
Willow was hugging Kennedy. Xander was too tired to notice or care that there was something very wrong about Kennedy. He saw Giles inspecting the bandages on Dawn and Oz. He went over to those three.
"Got duct tape," he said. He was beginning to feel extremely tired. From the look of it, so did Giles. Willow was just overrun with grief. Sleep hadn't crossed her mind in what would seem to her to be millenniums ago.
Xander went to rip off some tape. Unfortunately it was a two-hand job and he had forgotten he now only had one available. So he handed the roll to Giles. Giles then wordlessly taped over all of the wounds that they couldn't bandage with a strip of cloth. He made sure the tape was on good and tight.
That's when he realized he had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Meanwhile…
They didn't need to worry about the zombies anymore; Ashley took care of any that reared their decomposed heads and charged forth for a bite.
Angel, Spike, Fred, Robin, Faith, and Ashley were bunched together randomly. Angel was carrying Gunn with balancing help from Faith while Spike carried Monique.
There weren't very many zombies around anymore. They all wondered silently where they were. There had to be several laying in wait. There weren't very many bodies littering the ground anymore. That was the scariest part of retracing their steps in the direction of the mess hall tent: there were fewer bodies. Now they all knew what had happened to the bodies, but their imaginations still wandered off and caused havoc and chaos in their minds. Fear.
About thirty minutes away from the mess hall tent Buffy, Lorne, and Gwen appeared.
They all breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, there was some confusion. Who's where? What's happened to them? Who's alive and who's dead? Why the hell is Gwen here? What do you mean she just appeared?
Lorne was overjoyed at Fred being around again, but he wasn't as enthusiastic as he would've been had he known what had caused Illyria to leave her body. Well, that's what he thought. The truth is, he would've been scared shitless had he known that Illyria, back in her demon body and back to full power, was less than seven miles away. Along with the greatest army any one person or demon has ever possessed.
Angel and the others were filled in on Gwen's story. Buffy noticed Ashley and didn't know what question to ask. She remembered Ashley from the incident with Riley. Boy did it hurt her to think of that.
"What happened to Illyria?" Lorne asked. He had a smile on his face. The others shrugged, but Lorne didn't see the shrugs, so he asked again.
"We don't know," Angel replied. His voice sounded irritated. Lorne looked at him a little shocked at his irritation.
"If you don't want me to ask twice then answer the first time," he said. Angel bit his tongue.
"I think I saw it," Fred stated out of the blue.
"Huh?" most of them inquired simultaneously. Fred looked around at the rest of them. That's when Lorne, Buffy, and Gwen first noticed her bleeding abdomen.
"Illyria," Fred answered. Her pronunciation was a little shaky. She looked around at them. They were waiting for her to continue. "It was blue. It had at least five, green eyes. Its arms were long and skinny. It only had two arms placed high on its body, at its neck. It had three legs. Two in the front and one in the back. Like a tripod for a camera.
"It was tall. Really tall. Maybe twenty feet. Maybe even thirty. I saw it the entire time I was… gone, I guess. It's the only thing I saw." She finished her monologue and looked around at the others. Angel then had a bit of deja-vu. He had listened to this sort of stuff before from Cordelia and Doyle. He missed them both quite a lot. She was about to say something when a voice she had never heard asked them something. Fred turned around and stared into the young eyes of a man she had never seen before yet thought looked so familiar.
"We're all dead, aren't we?" this man asked.
"Connor!" Angel breathed in surprise.
"Who's Connor?" Fred asked.
"The world's ended, hasn't it?" this Connor asked.
"This is your son?" Buffy almost shouted in surprise.
"What?" Angel asked her, not knowing how she knew about Connor.
"It's true, isn't it? We're ghosts… or spirits… or something. We're dead." Connor's dirty face had tear tracks that ran through the dirt and dust all the way down his cheeks.
"No," Angel said. "How… We're not dead. How did you know about him?"
"You have a son?" Fred asked. Extremely confused. "I didn't know that!"
"You don't remember?" Angel asked. "The world's not over, Connor. How did you know about him, Buffy?"
"Why should I?" Fred asked.
"Lindsey told me," Buffy replied, staring at Connor.
"You're back!" Lorne shouted.
"I thought it was impossible for vampire's to breed," Robin stated.
"Hey, Connor," Gwen greeted him.
"Let Angel tell you about it," Faith ordered Robin.
"Because Wesley broke the memory spell," Angel told Fred.
"What memory spell?"
"What happened, then?" Connor asked.
"SHUT UP!" Angel shouted and everyone went silent. "One at a time! Alright! We don't know what happened, Connor. Everything just blew up all of a sudden. I put a memory spell on everybody so that Connor could have the life he deserved and Wesley broke it. I assumed you'd remember Connor. I don't know why you don't. The fact that I was able to breed was all part of this destiny to let this peace-making demon into the world! There! It's all straightened out for the moment! Can we get back to business, please?"
666
Hey, MorbidMan here. I thought of a new way to separate the chapter and the author's note since my old method doesn't show up on anymore. See the '666' above. You like it? I thought it would be cool to end this chapter on a comedic note. I got a new fic up. It's that "Buffy" one I told you about in my last author's note. Could you all go check that one out? It's "A Strange Vampire". It's much different from this story in that it's not so grand in its scale and won't get a grand scale. I'll update soon… hopefully. Now that school's starting back up I might not have a lot of time to update considering I do most of my writing between the hours of 1 and 6 AM. Obviously I can't do that in the school year. See you next chapter… whenever that'll be.
"My momma always say 'life is like a box of chocolates'; you never know what you're gonna get." - Forrest Gump "Forrest Gump"
Safe for the Moment
The sun was rising and the world was tinted blue. If it weren't for the acrid scent of smoke and fire and ash, they might've been able to smell the sweet smell that only morning could deliver. The building wasn't quite so dark anymore. There was no more accidentally bumping into things like chairs and tables and desks. He even thought it might be safe to descend the stairs. So he did. And it was.
Xander looked at the roll of duct tape he had been clutching so tightly his hand was white for the last hour of the night, hoping against hope that the zombies wouldn't burst in to munch on the tasty morsel that he was to them. The part he had been clutching had a hand-shaped impression and was slick with sweat. He assumed the roll was new because he couldn't see a single uneven tear on it.
He had looked out the window upstairs less than five minutes ago. There weren't any zombies outside for the moment, so he had decided to go out. He figured it would be safe to go downstairs because he hadn't heard the splintering crack that would signal the entrance of the zombies.
Opening the door to the outside of the nightmare he had trapped himself in, he listened. He could hear footsteps, but they were slow footsteps. He had watched the zombies and seen that, even when there was no one around to feed on, they ran. He heard a familiar voice. A female voice. Then a male's voice that he didn't remember ever hearing before. Xander was quite glad that there were other survivors. He could band with them and go to the mess hall tent to gather the others.
A few seconds later Xander was headed in the direction of the footsteps and Buffy, Lorne, and Gwen were rounding the corner to come face to face with him. They all jumped and then laughed.
"Xander!" Buffy shouted and embraced him. Xander smiled. "We've been looking for you."
Gwen was looking behind them, keeping watch for more of the zombies she had heard about. She wasn't worried; she knew the first one to show its rotted face would be flash-fried. She knew that because her mind was poised to do the flash-frying.
Xander looked at Gwen and assumed she was another one of the Slayers.
Buffy stepped away from Xander and then introduced him to Gwen. All the while she was keeping a watchful eye. And a tired eye. None of them had slept for the entire, endless night, and the adrenaline rushes were losing their effects. If they didn't get sleep soon then they would collapse on the battlefield. Or they would get mauled by zombies due to poor vision and sluggish actions. Buffy told Xander about how Gwen had appeared and Gwen filled him in with her story.
"Huh," Xander said. "I've heard and seen stranger things, but this still ranks up pretty high on the scale." That's when Xander realized there were just three in the group: the green demon (who Xander had heard about and knew went by the name of Lorne), Buffy, and Gwen. He knew that the others weren't dead, otherwise the group wouldn't be so light-hearted. So he asked where the others were.
"They're back at the cafeteria, err, mess hall tent," the exhausted Buffy replied. For some reason she had just thought she was in high school again. Sunnydale High. The one she had blown up to kill the Mayor, who had turned into an untainted demon during graduation. The feeling passed abruptly. She couldn't believe how long ago that had been. Six years. That was a fourth of her life ago.
"Okay," Xander said. "I'm gonna go there. Tape the wounds." He held up the roll of duct tape. Buffy nodded.
"Hurry," she ordered. Dawn hadn't been bleeding as much when she had left, but that wasn't necessarily good. She could be running out of blood to bleed.
Xander hurried back the way that the trio had come. It was a good ten minute walk and he was worrying that he would be too late the entire time. And he was so tired.
Willow was hugging Kennedy. Xander was too tired to notice or care that there was something very wrong about Kennedy. He saw Giles inspecting the bandages on Dawn and Oz. He went over to those three.
"Got duct tape," he said. He was beginning to feel extremely tired. From the look of it, so did Giles. Willow was just overrun with grief. Sleep hadn't crossed her mind in what would seem to her to be millenniums ago.
Xander went to rip off some tape. Unfortunately it was a two-hand job and he had forgotten he now only had one available. So he handed the roll to Giles. Giles then wordlessly taped over all of the wounds that they couldn't bandage with a strip of cloth. He made sure the tape was on good and tight.
That's when he realized he had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Meanwhile…
They didn't need to worry about the zombies anymore; Ashley took care of any that reared their decomposed heads and charged forth for a bite.
Angel, Spike, Fred, Robin, Faith, and Ashley were bunched together randomly. Angel was carrying Gunn with balancing help from Faith while Spike carried Monique.
There weren't very many zombies around anymore. They all wondered silently where they were. There had to be several laying in wait. There weren't very many bodies littering the ground anymore. That was the scariest part of retracing their steps in the direction of the mess hall tent: there were fewer bodies. Now they all knew what had happened to the bodies, but their imaginations still wandered off and caused havoc and chaos in their minds. Fear.
About thirty minutes away from the mess hall tent Buffy, Lorne, and Gwen appeared.
They all breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, there was some confusion. Who's where? What's happened to them? Who's alive and who's dead? Why the hell is Gwen here? What do you mean she just appeared?
Lorne was overjoyed at Fred being around again, but he wasn't as enthusiastic as he would've been had he known what had caused Illyria to leave her body. Well, that's what he thought. The truth is, he would've been scared shitless had he known that Illyria, back in her demon body and back to full power, was less than seven miles away. Along with the greatest army any one person or demon has ever possessed.
Angel and the others were filled in on Gwen's story. Buffy noticed Ashley and didn't know what question to ask. She remembered Ashley from the incident with Riley. Boy did it hurt her to think of that.
"What happened to Illyria?" Lorne asked. He had a smile on his face. The others shrugged, but Lorne didn't see the shrugs, so he asked again.
"We don't know," Angel replied. His voice sounded irritated. Lorne looked at him a little shocked at his irritation.
"If you don't want me to ask twice then answer the first time," he said. Angel bit his tongue.
"I think I saw it," Fred stated out of the blue.
"Huh?" most of them inquired simultaneously. Fred looked around at the rest of them. That's when Lorne, Buffy, and Gwen first noticed her bleeding abdomen.
"Illyria," Fred answered. Her pronunciation was a little shaky. She looked around at them. They were waiting for her to continue. "It was blue. It had at least five, green eyes. Its arms were long and skinny. It only had two arms placed high on its body, at its neck. It had three legs. Two in the front and one in the back. Like a tripod for a camera.
"It was tall. Really tall. Maybe twenty feet. Maybe even thirty. I saw it the entire time I was… gone, I guess. It's the only thing I saw." She finished her monologue and looked around at the others. Angel then had a bit of deja-vu. He had listened to this sort of stuff before from Cordelia and Doyle. He missed them both quite a lot. She was about to say something when a voice she had never heard asked them something. Fred turned around and stared into the young eyes of a man she had never seen before yet thought looked so familiar.
"We're all dead, aren't we?" this man asked.
"Connor!" Angel breathed in surprise.
"Who's Connor?" Fred asked.
"The world's ended, hasn't it?" this Connor asked.
"This is your son?" Buffy almost shouted in surprise.
"What?" Angel asked her, not knowing how she knew about Connor.
"It's true, isn't it? We're ghosts… or spirits… or something. We're dead." Connor's dirty face had tear tracks that ran through the dirt and dust all the way down his cheeks.
"No," Angel said. "How… We're not dead. How did you know about him?"
"You have a son?" Fred asked. Extremely confused. "I didn't know that!"
"You don't remember?" Angel asked. "The world's not over, Connor. How did you know about him, Buffy?"
"Why should I?" Fred asked.
"Lindsey told me," Buffy replied, staring at Connor.
"You're back!" Lorne shouted.
"I thought it was impossible for vampire's to breed," Robin stated.
"Hey, Connor," Gwen greeted him.
"Let Angel tell you about it," Faith ordered Robin.
"Because Wesley broke the memory spell," Angel told Fred.
"What memory spell?"
"What happened, then?" Connor asked.
"SHUT UP!" Angel shouted and everyone went silent. "One at a time! Alright! We don't know what happened, Connor. Everything just blew up all of a sudden. I put a memory spell on everybody so that Connor could have the life he deserved and Wesley broke it. I assumed you'd remember Connor. I don't know why you don't. The fact that I was able to breed was all part of this destiny to let this peace-making demon into the world! There! It's all straightened out for the moment! Can we get back to business, please?"
666
Hey, MorbidMan here. I thought of a new way to separate the chapter and the author's note since my old method doesn't show up on anymore. See the '666' above. You like it? I thought it would be cool to end this chapter on a comedic note. I got a new fic up. It's that "Buffy" one I told you about in my last author's note. Could you all go check that one out? It's "A Strange Vampire". It's much different from this story in that it's not so grand in its scale and won't get a grand scale. I'll update soon… hopefully. Now that school's starting back up I might not have a lot of time to update considering I do most of my writing between the hours of 1 and 6 AM. Obviously I can't do that in the school year. See you next chapter… whenever that'll be.
"My momma always say 'life is like a box of chocolates'; you never know what you're gonna get." - Forrest Gump "Forrest Gump"