Chapter 6: Squeal Like A Pig

"No, Pa, PLEASE, LET HER GO!"

As Willow was dragged along the corridor, from behind her she heard Tara's father slam the door and Tara scream and she wanted to reply, tell Tara not to worry, she'd be back as soon as she could, but Donnie's hand over her mouth made it impossible. She tried to get loose, but it seemed Tara's brother had done this sort of thing before; somehow he'd manage to grab her in a way that locked both her arms and kept her just enough off balance so she couldn't kick.

"You take good care of our guest, now, son", Tara's father called out as he went into one of the other rooms.

"You got it, Pa."

Willow bristled, too angry to be scared. Oooh, just you wait until I come back with Buffy. You'll wish you... hey, why are we going UPstairs? Indeed, instead of taking her downstairs and throwing her out, Donnie was now pulling her up a rickety staircase at the end of the hallway. Just what the heck was
(my family, they're... they're dangerous)
going on here? Half-fullness of glass: rickety staircases have railings. She hooked her feet around one of the posts and yanked as hard as she could as Donnie pulled her in the other direction, forcing him off balance, and as he shifted his grip she bit down hard on his hand.

"OW! You fuckin' bitch!"

He lost his hold and she got free, but before she could get away he kicked her hard in the ass and she went tumbling down the steps. She hit her head and within seconds he was on her again, pinning her down.

"OK, nice try, girly, I'll give ya that. Guess that answers who wears the pants between you and my sis. Ya smack her around too? She likes that, 's I recall. Least I never heard her complain."

Willow stared up at him, furious. "Then I guess when Buffy gets here, we'll see if it's a family trait."

"Buffy?" Donnie grinned. "That the li'l blonde? Because if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath. My brother done took care of her. Said she had a big knife or somethin' and still put up less of a fight than you're doing right now. But enough talkin', dontchathink?"

"Wha...?" Willow's head was already spinning when he punched her, and she didn't struggle when he started dragging her back up the stairs by her upper arm. He's lying. He's gotta be. OK, so Buffy wasn't taking this very seriously, but still...

Donnie still kept talking. "Now, I seem to recall invitin' you over for dinner earlier, and no one's goin' to say we don't take care of our guests here. We been in the meat trade for generations, and we never really bought into all them modern methods they use in the slaughterhouses these days... prefer to do it the ol-fashioned way. 'Course, since the cows died, we have to make do with whatever meat we can find..."

They reached the top of the stairs, another corridor with a couple of doors, and Donnie's talking trailed off as he noticed Willow dizzily fumbling with something in her pocket. "Whatcha got there?" He yanked her hand out and forced it open. The doll's eye crystal. "Hey! Where the fuck d'ya get this? This was my mom's!" He backhanded her painfully into one of the walls. "You a thief too, huh? I guess I'm really going to enjoy this. HEY! OLD MAN! WAKE UP!" Donnie grabbed her again, kicking one of the doors open. "Hey Grandpa, we're gonna let you have this one!"

The stench in the small room he dragged Willow into was overpowering, making her gag. Her first thought that it had to come from the corpse sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, but then it... he lifted his head and she realized that though the man was ancient, dirty and seemingly barely conscious of his surroundings, he wasn't quite dead. The best proof of this being that the stench came from him sitting in several weeks' worth of his own filth.

Donnie followed her gaze. "Yeah, no one can really be bothered to help him with that. That'll be your girlfriend's job once everything's back to normal. First I'll let you two get acquainted – don't worry, it's been a while, but Grandpa's still the best the slaughterhouse ever had. It won't hurt... much." He ran his fingers through her hair almost tenderly, stopping at the back of her neck. "Right here. Right above the brainstem. One crack o' the hammer and you'll be out like a light." This, of course, is where Willow started struggling and screaming for help, which only earned her another suckerpunch. Donnie put his hand over her mouth and held on to her as he dragged a large metal bucket towards the chair with his foot, picked up a small sledgehammer from it which he handed to the old man and then bent her over the bucket. "Show'er how it's done, Grandpa! Bash the bitch's head in and I'll make sure you get the best bits!"

The senile old man looked at the scene in front of him with dull eyes, not seeming to comprehend. He dropped the hammer once and Donnie had to hand it to him again. He swung feebly, only brushing against Willow's head, but on the third attempt he actually managed to land a decent hit... on Donnie's hand. The young man yelped in surprise and let go of Willow for an instant that she did not waste; she managed to worm free and as she scrambled backwards, her hand found something that had fallen on the floor.

The crystal.

Willow grabbed it and struck out at Donnie's face as he advanced on her, jamming it as hard as she could into his eye, feeling something pop and a warm liquid spurt out over her hand. The noise that came out of his throat started out as a puzzled "Huh?" and quickly mutated into a high-pitched wail as he fumbled blindly for her and toppled backwards, head-first into the bucket.

Something about the sound woke up old memories in his grandfather's cobwebbed brain. How he'd started out slaughtering pigs back at his old man's place way back during the depression... somehow it seemed like only yesterday. The way the sun had beat down on his tanned skin, the way his muscles had ached after working for twelve hours straight, the way the pigs would always squeal in terror as they were held down, and then you'd just grab the hammer hard and... The hammer came down with force this time, cracking Donnie's skull like an egg. Maclay Senior blinked in confusion as a jet of blood hit him square in the face, then licked his lips, relishing the taste.

Willow stumbled to her feet and didn't look back, just tore out into the hallway and down the stairs to Tara's room. She tried the handle, but the door was securely locked. "Tara?"

In her room, Tara jumped to her feet and ran to the door. "Willow? Oh thank Goddess, are you OK?"

"I..." Willow shook her head, feeling like she'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. "I think so. Do you know where your Dad keeps the key to this door? Because I could try and break it down, but-"

"NO!" Tara was struggling not to break down, but she couldn't bear the idea of Willow staying in this house a second longer. "Just go, Will, please, get out of here before they get a hold of you again. They won't hurt me any worse than they already have, but... please, just GO!"

Willow heard a door open further down the corridor, and for the first time she allowed herself to think rationally of what was happening. They had tried to kill her, actually really murder her, and... she clenched her teeth and pounded her fist on the door. "I'll be back, Tara. I'll get help and come back. I-I love you."

"I love you too, Will... so much... but please..."

Willow was off towards the second staircase within seconds, trying to come up with a plan as she ran. Get outside. Get rid of the protection spell. Get Buffy, or Xander, or Giles. Get back in. Get Tara. Get out. Get even. She still held on to the slimy crystal, feeling the power it held, both her own and Tara's mother's. As she half-ran, half-stumbled down the dark stairs she saw someone coming out into the hallway below, and as the other person stepped into the light of the single lightbulb down there and his face became visible, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Xander, thank God! Come on, we have to get Ta..."

She froze. The figure in front of her definitely had Xander's face, but there was something... off about it. And his body. And the fact that he was wearing a red-soaked butcher's apron and carrying a huge knife... She went white as a sheet as she realized that the only Xanderness about the man blocking her way out of the house was her best friend's face, worn like an ill-fitting halloween mask over the big man's own, a stranger's eyes glaring at her through two empty holes where Xander's eyes should be. Unsure if she was screaming, cursing or simply whimpering she ran for the door, trying to duck around the man who wailed some gibberish and struck out with the knife. Willow felt an intense pain in her stomach, did a full 360 on one of her heels before getting some kind of balance and darting out onto the porch, down the steps and finally hitting the ground hard out on the driveway. She tried to get up, but the pain was too much; putting her hand to her belly she felt something warm, sticky and snakelike coming out and instinctively tried to push it back in as she struggled to remember what it was she was supposed to be doing, it was something important, what was it what was it what was it... she raised her eyes and looked up, seeing a dark window on the second floor. She hoped it was Tara's window and raised the hand not holding her guts in to it, as if to wave goodbye. The crystal grasped tightly in it began to glow and she remembered why she had been in such a hurry.

"Solvere."

She gasped the word, almost inaudible, as if her body knew it was the last breath it would ever take. The crystal glowed stronger, shone bright for a second, and then blinked out again.

Author's note: Oh dear, I think I'm running out of scoobies. But at least I got to kill Donnie, that's a plus, right? Right?