Dawn and Buffy got back to the van just as the sun sunk below the horizon, finding themselves alone there; another disappointment to cap a day spent failing to find out anything at all about Tara's family. Buffy turned on the van's headlights so the others would be able to find them easier.
"Don't worry, Dawn. They'll be back soon."
An hour later she found herself rethinking that. The others still weren't back, it had gotten completely dark, and Buffy was really growing concerned. Better go look for them. Hell, for all she knew, they were in the Maclay's kitchen eating dinner... she realized she was hungry as well as tired. She checked the weapons they'd brought along, taking a short sword just to be on the safe side; it couldn't hurt to have something shiny to show off in case Tara's family got violent. "OK, Dawnie, let's go."
"No, Buffy, we can't go. What if they come back and we're not here?"
"Then they'll wait here until we get back. Dawn, this is Texas, not a hell dimension or anything, I'm sure they're OK." Buffy walked to the edge of the road, wondering where they should check first. Willow and Giles could probably take care of themselves, so she decided to go in the direction Xander and Anya had gone off in. As the moon rose, bathing the countryside in pale light, Buffy and Dawn crossed the highway and disappeared into the woods on the other side.
When Willow and Giles turned up at the same spot a little while later, having gotten lost and spent about an hour walking in circles until they found the highway, they too found the car abandoned and decidedly "lacking in Scoobyage" as Willow put it. "Great. So now what?"
"We wait", Giles sighed as he stretched out on the driver's seat, feeling his joints groan. Not a young man anymore, Rupert.
And they did, Giles almost drifting off to sleep – it had been a long day – and Willow pacing nervously back and forth. They both snapped out of it about 20 minutes later when they heard the scream. It was so far away and so brief they only barely noticed it before it was over, but whatever it was it chilled them to the bone. It sounded horrible.
"Good Lord, what was that?"
"Giles... I don't think that was an animal."
Giles fidgeted with his glasses. "I'm sure it must have been, a-a coyote or a mountain lion or something, I'm told they can sound almost like..." He didn't seem convinced. Something about it had sounded way too familiar.
"Oh this is ridiculous", Willow snorted and once again got out her spell book. "And don't even try to talk me out of it, Giles. We've tried this yours and Buffy's way and so far it's gotten us a whole lot of nothing."
"And you're sure you're enough in control to..." The look from Willow, equal parts hurt and anger, shut that sentence down. "Right. So this is a... locator spell?"
"Well, technically it's a guiding spell. Should get basically the same result, though." Willow read a page carefully, then sat down crossing her legs and focusing all her power on the doll's eye crystal in her hands. She closed her eyes and pictured Tara's face before she started chanting.
"Aradia, to you I plead
To take my hand and
gently lead
By the trees that gently sway
By the stars that
light our way
By the heavens dark above her
I beg thee, take me
to my lover."
The flash when Willow disappeared into thin air was bright enough to blind Giles. He stumbled backwards, hit his head on the car door, fell and lay still. He had been unconscious for a while when a shadowy figure walked up to the van, tossed Giles in the back, hotwired it and drove off.
"Uh, Sis? Think you're going to find the path anytime soon again?"
"This IS the path. I think."
"No, Buffy. This isn't a path. Paths don't have branches sticking out and poking people in the – OW!" They'd been trudging through the thickening woods for a while now. It was almost pitch dark and if Buffy hadn't been wearing white Dawn would probably have lost sight of her ages ago. "I so don't think this is the right way. For all we know, this just goes on and on and we're going to be walking here until we die of –"
"There. See? Happy now?" Buffy pointed to the dirt road that suddenly appeared in front of them. "Told you this was a shortcut." They got on the road – only to discover they weren't alone. About 50 yards ahead, a large man was walking towards them. With only the moonlight they couldn't see much of him, but it looked like he was carrying something.
"Hello?" Buffy called out. "Look, I hope we're not trespassing or anything, it's just that we're looking for some friends and I guess the woods are thicker than we thought and –"
WRRRRRRM. The chainsaw roared to life, ripping the countryside silence to shreds.
"O...K. Look, I appreciate it if you wanna clear a path for us, but really, we got it covered. Thanks, though." Buffy slowly started backing away, pulling the sword out of its sheath just in case. But the man kept closing in, moving way too fast for her taste, and what the hell is with his FACE? Oh, this is not good. This is very far from good. Good has left the building and is boarding a plane to Kuala Lumpur, and I wish I could go with it. "Dawn, run back to the car!"
"But..."
"NOW!" There was no time for Buffy to check if Dawn was following orders; Leatherface bore down on her, screaming something unintelligible and waving his chainsaw back and forth in a way that was way too unpredictable for Buffy's taste. She barely managed to duck, feeling the draft as the spinning blade passed just past her ear. The swing carried him forward and she felt him tug violently at her, then stumble and lose his balance. The chainsaw sputtered and stalled as he went sprawling, Buffy saw her opening and raised the sword to –
No she didn't. Hang on. No sword. Did I drop it?
She looked down on the ground and spotted the blade by the moonlight it reflected. Huh. Weird. How could she still be holding on to the sword when it was lying three feet away from her? Because she could clearly see her hand gripping it. She stared at it for a couple of seconds before her brain admitted that yes, that was her hand holding the sword, and her arm attached to the hand, and... then the pain kicked in and she started screaming as she looked down on herself and realized her right arm ended in a geyser of blood just below the shoulder. Instinctively she tried to stop the bleeding with her left hand, but the chainsaw had made a complete mess of the wound and it was like trying to stop a river with a sieve.
Dawn hadn't run far when she heard Buffy scream and turned back. It was too dark for her to see exactly what was happening, but it was obvious that Buffy was badly hurt and that Leatherface wasn't. In fact, he was just getting up again. The chainsaw came back to life on the first pull. "BUFFY! Look out!"
Buffy blinked, absently wondering how Dawn could already have gotten so far away that she could barely hear her when everything else was moving so slowly. She turned just in time to duck the next swing from Leatherface's weapon. He rammed her with all of his 300-odd pounds, stumbled again and pinned her down. Somehow she managed to kick him off her and lurched to her feet as fast as she could, but her head was spinning and she had to take a few extra steps back to steady herself. Through a deep red fog, she could see Leatherface raise the chainsaw and prepare to attack...
...then Dawn stepped between them, wielding a branch barely two feet long. "GET AWAY FROM HER!"
And Leatherface, incredibly, stopped. He lowered the chainsaw, cocked his head and looked at the young girl like he'd never seen anything like her before. "Eeen?" He took a hesitant step forward and reached out with his free hand as if to touch her.
"NO, Dawn, get... out of here!" Buffy grabbed her sister with her left arm and, using all her remaining strength, tossed her as far into the dense vegetation as she could. Ever the warrior, even despite the pain and blood loss she then tried to pick the sword up to continue fighting, but reflexes take time to adapt and her body automatically tried to use the right hand she no longer had. She forced herself to think – it was becoming harder by the second – and switch hands, but turning around to do that took a second she didn't have. As she grabbed the sword and looked up to face her killer, all she had time to see was an extreme closeup of the revving sawblade - and then she never saw anything again. For a fraction of a second, she managed to register the pain as it eradicated the top half of her face and Buffy's last scream blended together with the howl of the rusty Poulan 306A. Then it dissolved into a bubbling moan as the saw dug its way into her brain.
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