A/N: This was written in either 1999/2000 but I'm not sure which. It still holds up as being vaguely amusing and origional.In any case, I'm about to lose the domain it's on, and the origional files are long gone, I dont even know how many years and computers ago. I wasabout 17 at the time I wrote this. Nothing has been edited.
The three teenagers were sitting in study hall at Sunnydale High, bored out of their minds. Snyder (as he preferred to be called) yawned and watched the hands of the clock slowly move from one minute to the next. He glanced to his right at Joyce, who was making little doodles on her notebook. Hearts in red marker that said J+R in them. He grimaced.
A note hit his desk, causing him to tear his gaze away from the girl. "Pass it to Joyce," Ripper hissed at him from his left. Snyder ignored him and read the note. "Me and Ethan are taking off next period. Wanna' come?--R" Snyder folded it back up and passed it to Joyce.
She read it and quickly scribbled a reply at the bottom of the page. Snyder read it when it was passed his way again. "You bet.--J"
He added something to it, getting dirty looks from the teens on both sides of him. "I'm coming too.--S" Ripper glared at him when he read it, but said nothing. His attention turned back to the obscene message he was carving into the desk.
"You're not going with us, Rat-boy. You can forget it!" Ripper told him when the bell rang.
"Wanna' bet? I'll tell you left."
"Big deal."
"I'll let Joyce's mama know what the two of you were doing under the bleachers during last weeks basketball game."
"Why you little--" Ripper lunged at the smaller boy. Snyder stepped away quickly, frightened.
Joyce held Ripper back. "It's more trouble than it's worth," she told him. "Just let him come." Ripper reluctantly agreed.
They met Ethan at his beat up van, which had once been hit by a school bus. Joyce explained the situation to him. He grumbled some, but allowed it. "Shotgun!" Snyder bellowed when they got into the car. Ethan rolled his eyes as he climbed into the driver's seat.
"This van's wreck!" Snyder exclaimed right off. "What's with all the duct tape?"
Ripper lit up two cigarettes in his mouth, then handed one to Joyce. "Duct tape'll fix anything."
"Where to?" Ethan asked Ripper.
"The guys will meet us in that gutted out factory in the middle of nowhere, past Crawford Street. They're bringing the stuff."
"What stuff?" Snyder asked immediately.
"Ever hear of a demon called Eygon?"
"No."
"Well, lets just say we're going to be meeting him real soon."
"You mean, like witch craft? The occult? Please! You believe in that stuff?" he asked incredulously.
"Believe?" Ethan looked over at him. "We practice. You wanna' give us a real reason to call you Rat-boy?"
Ripper snickered. "Goddess Hecate, work thy will—"
"No, don't!" Joyce exclaimed.
"What?" Ripper glared at her.
"I don't like rats!"
"I wasn't serious," he grumbled. "Ethan, do we have beer?"
"You're sittin' on it, mate." Ripper got up off the cooler he was sitting on and passed the beers around the van. All four teenagers were in a good mood when Ethan pulled the vehicle in front of the abandoned building near the docks.
Ripper carried a six-pack in each hand into the building, Joyce, as always, a his side. Ethan and Snyder followed. Snyder lagged behind, suddenly uncertain. "You guys sure about this?" They ignored him. Ethan lead them into the main room of the factory.
"Where is everybody?" Joyce wondered aloud. There was a pile of supplies in the middle of the room, but no sign of their friends.
"Deirdre probably dragged them off to get chocolate or something to satisfy her sweet tooth," Ethan said kneeling beside the cardboard box of candles, herbs and other important materials. "We can set up without them. Where's the sage?" He turned to the others. Ripper and Joyce were all over each other, oblivious to the other members of the group.
Snyder was standing a short distance away, staring at a pile of crates near one wall. "What's that?" He pointed to something sticking out from behind them.
Ethan looked in the same direction. "What's what?" Then he saw what Snyder was seeing. "Is that a leg?" The two boys ventured over for closer inspection. There was more that just a leg. There was a body. Or two. "Phillip?" He saw bite marks on the boy's neck.
"And Deirdre," Snyder added.
"Guys? Get over here!" Ethan called shakily. He was ignored. "Rupert! Now!"
Ripper broke away from Joyce angrily. She herself didn't look too happy with Ethan. "What have I told you about that name?"
Ripper looked a little stricken at the sight of his friends on the floor. He quickly checked for a pulse. Joyce looked sick. "Are they. . ." she trailed off.
"Dead. Yes." He looked up, serious. Snyder backed away. Ripper continued, "They haven't been gone for more than an hour, possibly less. The bodies are still warm."
"Then that means--" Ethan was cut off by a voice.
"It was a good thing we stuck around, or else we would have missed dessert." A blond vampire in a plaid navy blue skirt stepped out of the shadows on the far end of the factory. The doors could be heard slamming shut, and three others joined her. All four were wearing their game faces.
Ethan and Snyder had inched behind Ripper and Joyce. Ripper looked at them in disgust. "Are you afraid of a little vampire?" Ethan and Snyder looked at each other, then nodded. Ripper patted his jacket pockets, looking for a stake. He came up empty handed.
Joyce nudged him, producing a stake from somewhere in her clothes. "Here."
The blond looked at them, unabashed. "Thomas," she said to one vampire. He stepped up beside her. "Would you like the girl?" Thomas nodded solemnly.
Ripper was furious, flinging himself at the group of vampires. "And I thought I was the stupid one," Ethan muttered, before being obligated to join the fight. Snyder (being a wimp) and Joyce (being smart) stayed put.
The blond had stepped away from the tangle of attacking bodies. "Men," she muttered. Joyce, without realizing, had nodded in agreement. Something in the mass exploded into dust. "Stop it!" she yelled.
Thomas looked up guiltily. He held Ethan by the shirt, while the other vampire had Ripper firmly in his grasp. The blond approached him. "I like you," she said to Ripper. "This one's mine," she told the vampire holding him.
"Don't bloody think so!" Ripper spat.
She smiled and ran her hand down his cheek while he glared silently. "The Master will be pleased. Especially if I bring your friends with me. He will let me keep you. As a pet."
Joyce did not like the sound of this at all. She marched up to the female vampire. "Look here you, you, vampire!" The vampire turned to her, amused. "Ripper is my boyfriend! Not yours! And you are not going to take him!" She punctuated each sentence by stamping her foot on the floor.
The vampire laughed. "You're going to stop me? This I have got to see." She faced the angry girl directly. And got kicked in the face. She was jerked backwards from the strength of the blow. "That wasn't supposed to happen!" She wasn't laughing any more. This little girl wasn't playing fair. She was supposed to be helpless. Joyce kicked her again before the vampire had completely regained her footing. She was knocked into the other two vampires and boys, all hitting the ground.
"C'mon, let's go!" Snyder was calling from the door. While the other three had been fighting he had the sense to go around opening the door. Ripper and Ethan quickly untangled themselves from the knot of vampires and ran, Ripper pulling Joyce with him.
The blond vampire had regained her dignity. "Get them you morons!" she ordered Thomas and his friend. They ran uncoordinated after them, but stopped short where the sunlight streaming in from the open door hit the floor. Their meal had successfully escaped.
Ripper stood in the doorway laughing. "What's wrong, nancy-boys? 'Fraid of a little sunlight?" The vampires glared angrily from the shadows.
Joyce pulled him away. "Let's go!" She dragged him to the van. "Don't provoke them anymore than we already have."
"But, we only killed one!"
Snyder and Ethan were both cross and upset. "You do realize that two of our friends are dead, don't you Ripper?" Ethan asked.
"Why else would I want to go back in there and rip their bleedin' heads off?"
Joyce tried to console him. "You killed one of them. And I'm sure you'll run into the others again. You'll get your chance." She slowly calmed him down, then they spent the rest of the ride back to the school in silence, mourning the loss of their friends.