Chapter 3: The Dawn of the Dead
A day later she stared at the piece of paper covered with her Watcher's familiar scrawl and couldn't understand. The language was familiar, being english, and the words had meaning, but that he'd held them back from her was incomprehensible.
He'd given up on his books some time mid morning and hadn't mentioned them again. That was the worst part. He'd found something but kept it to himself. Ever since he'd been sitting with everyone else, watching the television as the government tried to pretend everything wasn't falling apart. Giles never watched Television. He did own one but generally it was buried so far behind stacks of books that it had been years before she'd found out it existed. Given this she'd found it somewhat suspicious when he suddenly abandoned his beloved reading material to watch the depressingly consistent news reports on the television.
She'd given up on the broadcasts after only an hour finding them far too frustrating to watch. It made their fears when fighting Master Nest or Angelus pale in comparison and mankind was never going to be able to forget this apocalypse and pretend it hadn't happened. The dead were walking the earth not just in Sunnydale or in the United States but everywhere across the globe. No one knew how and no one knew why but by the time people had figured out that something horrible was happening humanity had already lost its status as the dominant species on the planet to a bunch of rotting corpses. Safe areas in and around various large cities were posted by the emergency network and just as quickly word came in that they'd been lost. No one seemed to have any idea what had caused the epidemic. She didn't know if there was anyone still trying to figure it out or if all else had been forgotten in the face of questionable survival. Closer to home the occasional scream or vehicle crash sounded out across Sunnydale but for the most part the mouth of hell had gone quiet. None of them had been curious enough to look out one of the unboarded upstairs windows. No one really wanted to know how bad it was. The others because they were simply terrified and Buffy, well, because if she saw it she'd have to do something about it and the few times she'd thought of going out to try and help the others had practically held her down and begged her not to go.
Shaking her head she looked back at the passage and wondered again why Giles would keep their first possible lead to himself. Standing up she headed back to the living room, the notebook held open in her hands. "Giles?"
"Yes Buffy?" He looked up from his seat on the couch. His face was pale and drawn and she had to wonder when he'd last had sleep.
"And I fear that the gods themselves shall become arrogant and in their power forget the free will of man." Buffy read from the notes. Even to her own ears her voice sounded flat and hollow. "I have had these visions, ones I fear were not sent to me by the higher powers. The seers name them blasphemy and my order confines me lest my words be heard by those who might listen." It was her seventh time reading it though, the first that wasn't silent. Each time it made her feel like doing some God cursing herself but she doubted they were still around to listen. "Perhaps it is a message that the gods refuse to accept for I can feel its truth even as I do not understand it, so it is now sent through me lest they continue to ignore it. Arrogance the others proclaim, blasphemy, and I can not disagree yet still I can not repent. I am lost. I am a messenger without course or direction to those with ears to listen and the hands and minds to take action and even if I found them I fear their hearts would remain as closed as my own. But I cannot let it be forgotten lest the things I have seen hold dangerous truths. Perhaps, someday, it will make its way to those that might stave off an end of days brought not by daemon, god, or even by magic, but by man himself."
Buffy finished reading and looked up solemnly. Everyone had been listening by the time she finished – the silence only broken by the sound of a desperate reporter on the TV who sounded not unlike a person slowly losing his mind. "Giles what is this?"
"Oh. That." He replied weakly.
"Yes. This!" She huffed, tossing the notebook into his lap. What had he been thinking?
"I'm sure," Xander interrupted "that our favorite librarian had a perfectly good reason for keeping that to himself."
"Yes, well, thank you for the vote of confidence Xander. Buffy, it seems that not every book of prophecy burned itself out. There were several that were never really prophecies, apparent fakes. This would fall into a similar category and unlike many others it was a known fake discredited long ago and kept around only as a curiosity. " He moved forward to take the paper and she held it away.
"It obviously caught your attention or I wouldn't have found it in your notes."
Giles gave up and put his head in his hands with an air of hopelessness that she hadn't seen since the death of Jenny Calendar. His reply sounded desperate. "Well you read it surely you can see that its far from conclusive. Thousands of books of prophecy are just as mad and had absolutely nothing to do with what's going on now."
"These would be the books that turned into small bonfires right?" Buffy replied petulantly.
"The rest of the first part of the book is just more rambling in Latin about how the gods would be wrong and fate would be circumvented by man unless the gods listened to him. But even he admits that his visions could be considered the worst kind of blasphemy. He wasn't even convinced that they were real Buffy."
"Well so far it sounds like he got it right to me Giles - enough for you to read the rest of the book anyway. Fate being… circumnavi…"
"Circumvented"
"That. What else would you call every book the Powers ever wrote on how things were going to happen going up in flames at the exact, same, time?"
"I agree with you. There's nothing truly informative in the first chapter however and I haven't read the rest. " Giles admitted.
"And why," Buffy growled "Haven't you? The Giles I know would be like a dog with a bone with this, or a dog with several bones. Nice big tasty ones even."
The last thing she was expecting was for him to start laughing.
"I'm sorry did I say haven't? I meant to say can't. You see this was a book that many viewed as defying Gods' ordained path for mankind. A book that claimed man's fate would be beyond their ability to control and that we had to be prepared for it. Whatever order he was a part of didn't want the wrong people to read this, to hear it, but wasn't quite prepared to destroy it either. So they made sure that no one who wasn't supposed to read the book could. They did this by coding the book and devising a key to understanding it. If someone stole only the book they'd still be lost without the key. Its described in the first chapter and I imagine they were traditionally kept in separate locations. We don't have the key so everything else becomes irrelevant."
Buffy groaned and fell into a chair across from him. "Sort of like a nose thumbing nah nah to whoever took the book?"
"Yes I suppose if you want to be juvenile about it." Giles snarked.
"So we get the key." She stated matter of factly. It was their first real clue since the entire mess had started and she wasn't about to let it get thrown away.
"We can't Buffy. I made some phone calls before the lines went down and one of the field watchers thought they had seen it in an antique store in LA several months ago. He thought it was a cheep curio at the time but recognized the description however his confidence in the match wasn't high and even if it was months ago that he came across it. That kind of a trip would be suicide now. And even if it is the correct artifact it would probably tell us nothing of use. This has already happened and we cannot prevent it."
"It's all we've got Giles!" Buffy almost yelled. Why couldn't he see that she couldn't just sit around watching the world end? That wasn't who she was. It wasn't who any of them were. "Now just tell me where this shop is, what the key looks like, and I'll go get it."
"Buffy the city is likely congested with mobs of walking corpses. Just how do you expect to get there without getting eaten?" Giles had raised his voice now too. She couldn't remember the number of times that had happened. Less than five. She knew it was less than five. "It's a fool's errand Buffy."
"Then I guess I'm a fool." She responded quietly. "I'm also the Slayer. This is what I do. I'll go and get it and come back. Is there a picture?"
"Yes there's a picture." Giles replied after a moment sounding defeated, as if he'd just listened to her declare a death sentence on herself. "How exactly do you plan to get there? You know you're not a good driver at the best of times Buffy and there's very little chance the way will be clear."
It was a fair point but she wasn't about to let herself be dissuaded. If she had to she'd walk to LA. "I'll improvise. I'm going to get packed Giles. Meanwhile you need to make me a copy of that key. The picture I mean."
The sound of a clearing throat made both of their heads spin to where several forgotten faces had apparently been listening wide-eyed to the entire argument.
"If you want the zombies to come find us and kill us we could all just get on top of the roof and scream a little. I mean the shouting will probably work but that would just be quicker." Willow commented with a smile.
"Sort of like a zombie dinner bell." Xander felt the need to add.
"I'd really rather not be eaten." This and a snarl was Anya's only response. Tara simply nodded in agreement.
"Right. Sorry. Won't happen again." Was Giles' only response before he slipped out of the room.
And so she'd gotten packed, and her watcher had drawn her a picture as a parting gift. Everyone else took turns either trying to convince her of just how insane she was being or offering to come with her if only to act as chauffeur. Her mother had actually begged her not to go and the resulting conversation had involved copious tears before it reached the inevitable conclusion. She didn't really listen to any of them as they were simply ingoring the core truth of their situation. It had to be done. She was pretty sure that just staying put was the equivalent to sitting around and waiting to die and this wasn't a search and destroy mission, it was a retrieval, and she was pretty sure she'd be able to move faster without anyone else coming along for the trip. She wore leather again though if they'd had any she'd have gladly put on a suit of chain mail. The only alternative was to wear the padding Giles used when they sparred and she had no intention of ever in her entire life looking that ridiculous. She did however need to find something less colorful in the near future. She wasn't sure how well these things could see but for all she knew they might react to her red pants with the same interest a rampaging bull would. A black sweater was covered by the same black jacket, but this time she had added sharp pointy objects everywhere she could now that they'd been demonstrated one hundred percent effective. One in each boot, the two strapped to her thighs and two in conveniently located pockets. A backpack lay on top of the sword harness, filled with nothing other than bottles of water or high calorie food, the kind you didn't have to cook or worry about going bad. The fact that her selection completely emptied out their supply of junk food made Xander pout for the entire thirty minutes preceding her departure. Just for an added measure of safety she'd decided to leave through her bedroom window. If she didn't go out the front door then nothing could get in the front door. So she thought anyway, and it couldn't hurt. The others had all just looked at her like they never expected to see her again even when she promised to come back, telling them several times not to worry because it might take some time to make her way through LA.
And so, with willow and her mother both staring tearfully after her she dropped down to the ground outside her house on a typical sunny afternoon on the hell mouth and took careful stock of her surroundings. Nothing ran out and attacked her, something she generally considered of the good. There was no sign of any other life either though. She could see some cars with their windows smashed in and covered with blood. One house down the street even had half a Volvo sticking through the living room window. The world, however, seemed entirely dead. She briefly considered taking her mother's car before discarding the idea. She even considered trying the cars of some of her neighbors' before she gave up on that too. She needed transportation and she sucked at driving cars. Maybe it was time she tried out something new. Without any better ideas she set out for a local dealership. Given the current climate she was pretty sure everything would be available at bargain basement prices and if she couldn't come up with anything better than a car, she could at least come up with something more durable. Maybe a nice big SUV… or better yet a tank.
The trip to the vehicle lot was almost anti-climactic. Buffy liked her apocalypses violent and noisy. This disturbing silence was just giving her a severe case of the wiggins and she really wasn't enjoying it. The dealership itself however was an entirely different story and she silently cursed herself for jynxing it. As she got closer to the large lot filled with shiny new vehicles she spotted at lest twenty or thirty corpses wandering between them. It might have looked like they were just trying to decide what they wanted to test drive if it weren't for the gaping wounds and broken limbs almost every one of them appeared to suffer from. Near the compacts she spotted a man who wandered from cheap car to cheap car and kept tripping on his own intestines in the process. She had to spend a quiet several minutes just trying to not throw up after seeing that.
The lot was just on the edge of the down town area and a little further away on the main drag she could see more of the same. Down town Sunnydale was beginning to look like it was in the middle of a festival honoring the recently, yet still mobile, deceased and she doubted she'd be welcomed as anything other than a party favor. The Zombies in the lot were bad, especially if they attracted the attention of other corpses little more than a block away. On the upside she had lots of cars to work with so they shouldn't have an easy time mobbing her once got past the fence if she kept to the high ground.
It wasn't like she hadn't been getting bored anyway. It was definitely time to move on to the action portion of the afternoon's entertainment. Gripping the hilts of both her swords she quickly slid them free and couldn't keep from grinning at the really lethal ringing sound they made as they slid past the metal band at the top of their sheathes. Then she frowned. While very cool it actually had a severe downside as evidenced by the numerous corpses suddenly heading towards the building corner she'd been peeking around. Even worse, apparently death didn't damage their hearing at all as she'd gotten the attention of more than just the zombies in the lot. They were popping out of buildings that she'd assumed were completely empty and soon she'd be in the middle of an undead Mardi-gras.
Not good on a very cosmic scale.
And realizing the stupidity of her not-so-much-a-plan and that she was surrounded by insurmountable odds she did what any good slayer would. She ignored the odds and started moving.
It was the first time she'd used both swords at once but her superior strength helped her maintain firm control over the two heavy blades as she danced around reaching arms and slavering mouths leaving decapitated bodies and chattering skulls behind her. She was surrounded by the splatter of congealed blood and the shrieks of walking corpses and everything else faded away into irrelevance. This wasn't a fight that needed finesse in the usual manner. It was a fight that required her to keep moving closer to her goal, never getting stuck in a crowd and never missing a target. She quickly severed one neck after another allowing her movements to spin her from one sweep of a blade to the next as she tried to keep anything from taking her from behind and tried to keep moving towards the general direction of her goal. She didn't have time to focus on her victims. The slavering maw of a fat businessman which was bisected when her aim slipped and he only lost the top half of his head passed on remarked. The bespectacled old woman who must undoubtedly have been someone's grandmother but now lacked arms was kicked fifteen feet away and forgotten even as two teenagers she might have gone to school with lost their heads in the most final of ways.
Her first slip was nearly her last as a small wiry zombie with most the skin torn from its face slipped under her guard, its teeth clamping down on thick leather and slipping as it tried to tear its way into her stomach, far too close for her to use the spinning blades that at that moment had just felled two more of its fellow dead. Dropping the sword in favor of fists or a dagger would get her killed by the five other zombies only meters away and without recourse she reacted on pure instinct, squeezing the hilt of the sword in her right hand in just the right way, and pounded the side of the creature's head with the spike that suddenly descended from the bottom of her hand. The fists which had latched onto her went lax and slipped free and she kicked it away and dashed free of the small mob that had formed in her brief moment of indecision. After that she settled into a rhythm of slashing and spiking even as the crowd thickened and tried to press in and crush her.
She felt more like a butcher than a slayer by the time she finally found reached the edge of the now almost empty car lot. Surrounded by dead bodies trying to crawl over the decapitated corpses left in her wake she turned away before they could reach her. With an unladylike grunt she jumped up and threw one of her swords over the fence, using the same hand to swing herself up and over beyond the immediate reach of the hands now grasping at her from below.
Once she was on the other side the corpses only took a moment to move for the open gate half way down the fence, still intent on reaching her, with a dissapointing display of lingering intelligence. She snatched her dropped sword from the ground before sprinting towards the front door of the dealership, all the while praying that it was open. Not really praying of course because despite everything she'd seen in her life Buffy had never been the religious type. It was odd really. After seeing the effects of a cross on a vampire she still couldn't bring herself to believe in a benign loving god. As zombies still in the lot came after her she vaulted to the top of the cars using them as a safe highway, her sword swiping at any zombie that tried to follow her on top of the vehicles.
Dropping from the last car and slamming through the thankfully unlocked dealership door she closed it behind her and seeing no other way to lock it shoved her swords through the handles. Moments later a dark haired and bloody woman in undoubtedly expensive business attire threw herself at the doors. The glass held firm and the swords prevented the doors from opening more than a crack. More zombies followed all of them pounded on the glass like wild animals. Staring into their filmy eyes she couldn't help but wonder how many of them had believed in god. Had it done them any good in the end? Were their souls in heaven or trapped in their rotting shells waiting for someone like her to set them free?
Shaking her head she looked around the large room. The huge glass windows that made up the front of the dealership seemed to be reinforced - either that or the corpses simply weren't up to the task. Now pressed against every window they were all staring in at her, slamming their fists against the barrier and moaning their displeasure. Inside the place seemed deserted except for bright shiny new cars that once upon a time when she was a self absorbed teenager she'd have given an arm and a leg to own. Or better yet, to have a boyfriend who owned. The very thought made her cringe. Definitely not her proudest stage of life.
Wandering around she didn't get any ideas. She really had to admit that her previous attempts at driving had gone… questionably. Her hope had been to find something big and solid that wouldn't protest a little creative sideswiping... not to mention that could barrel through the crowd outside. Unfortunately none of the nifty vehicles looked like they'd be any better than her mom's car and given how much work it had been to get inside the result was very depressing. Staring back and forth despondently between the poor selection and the rotting corpses that she was now pretty sure were laughing at her she was tempted to just sit down and cry for a bit. Not tempted enough to actually do it of course but someone had obviously forgotten to put a limit on just how cruel the universe was allowed to be.
Without a firm choice in mind she figured she'd have to find the keys regardless. It didn't matter which vehicle she decided on if she couldn't start it. None of them had the keys in the ignition of course. That would have been far too easy with the way life had been going lately – no free rides for Buffy. Well, except for the one she was about to take without paying for it first which completely invalidated the saying but she knew what she'd meant when she'd thought it and in the scheme of things did anything else really matter?
Keys mattered. Keys she didn't have and without which she would be going no where. Taking one more look at the moaning army outside she had to wonder again just how long she had before enough of them showed up to break in through sheer mass alone. She really didn't want to think about it so instead she'd go back to thinking about keys and where exactly it was that they'd keep the keys for vehicles on the showroom floor.
A search of the offices of the salesmen turned up nothing except the occasional license plate and an excessive number of automobile photos. This left only a single door marked 'staff' which she casually strolled through. She was hardly staff but, really, she doubted the owner was in any condition to object.
The growling corpse that slammed into her as soon as she stepped through the door proved her wrong. Lying on the floor with its snarling teeth reaching for her throat she shoved one of her arms between it and her face only to feel its jaws clamp down on her. Hard. It had its teeth around her arm and it was biting her and god was that all it took? Did they have to kill you to turn you into one of them or did it just need to take a good chunk out of you?
The corpse slammed into the plaster so hard that it left a man shaped impression in the wall. A feral shrieking sound came from its throat only to be cut off abruptly by a very sharp knife propelled with all the momentum a panicked slayer could manage. By the time the knife exited straight through the other side of his skull and embedded itself in the wall the zombie had forgotten any previous desire to feast and fallen to the floor, never to walk again.
"Oh god." Her arm felt like it had been put in a vice and she found herself wondering morbidly, wondering just how badly it had hurt her, wondering how long it would take to become one of them and if she was already dying. To think she'd laughed when they implied the trip was a suicide mission and meanwhile she hadn't even made it out of town. Why couldn't she stop breathing so hard? Was that how it started? Death by excessive breathing? Or maybe she was just panicking. She'd heard of hyperventilating before but really that was a Willow thing not a Buffy thing and god why did everything seem so out of focus? Dropping to the floor she began wondering if maybe that was how it started. Lots of heavy breathing and light headedness.
To think she'd always been terrified of becoming a vampire. What a laugh. Really in comparison at least vampires could still be pretty when they walked around dead. Zombies would just stand around and rot. It wasn't only horrible it was completely disgusting as well. How could she have been so stupid? Buffy watched TV. Ok she didn't watch it often but even she knew that the cops always assumed there was something bad in the next room until after they'd made sure there wasn't. They certainly didn't just wander around willy nilly waiting for someone to kill them.
She looked at her arm. Wondering how long it would take. Wondering if she wouldn't have been better off if it had ripped her throat out on its first try. Then she was just wondering why there wasn't any blood. She was really quite sure that there should be blood, really sure, but all she could find were small rips in her jacket. The leather jacket she'd intentionally put on before leaving because she figured it was a bit more protection than anything else she had. The leather jacket that it had tried to rip through with its teeth, to tear away the thick material in the sleeves and… failed.
There were small rips in the leather and it had obviously been making progress but she didn't see any blood. Slamming the door shut to what now looked like a back office full of filing cabinets and drawers and other things she really didn't care about right now she did a quick check to make sure she hadn't missed anything else. When she was satisfied there wasn't another corpse hiding in a supply closet she rapidly dropped her jacket to the floor and then pulled her sweater off over her head. Staring at her arm, rubbing her other hand up and down the area where it had tried to feed on her she found nothing but wonderful, horribly bruised, but completely unbroken skin.
Buffy had always been fond of leather. In excessive quantities it could be a bit much but really, sometimes there was nothing else quite like it when you wanted to make a statement. From now on however she would worship leather. For the rest of her life she was so going to bow down every morning and give thanks to the great cow god in the sky for providing leather to all the poor needy people of the earth. Maybe she'd give it a prayer now. It was never too soon to find religion. She'd start just as soon as she figured out why her eyes were so wet.
It took several minutes for her to finally calm down and get dressed again. She locked away the event as a learning experience and swore silently to herself that she would never ever tell anyone what had happened here. Not that she'd done something so careless. Not that she, the Slayer, had almost fainted from hysteria. Certainly not that she'd spent several minutes hugging her jacket and barely resisting the urge to verbally thank it for protecting her. The only reason she hadn't kissed it was that it still had yucky zombie slobber on it.
She'd come into the office for a reason but it had completely escaped her by this point. She'd gone to the dealership for a reason she remembered that much. For transportation… to L.A… which required keys. Keys which were hopefully hiding somewhere in the large office she was now hiding in and which was about to get oh so thoroughly ransacked. Several minutes later she finally opened the right cupboard to find it filled with nothing but the elusive keys. In fact it had so many keys that it was mind boggling. Fortunately all of them were clearly labeled and all she had to do was pick a preferred method of escaping this now completely wasted near death experience. Really, she should have just taken her mothers car to begin with and saved herself the trauma.
It was while trying to decide between the two SUVs she'd seen in the show room, neither of which looked nearly as tank like as she'd pictured in her head, that she glanced out the window which faced onto the back parking lot of the dealership. It wasn't the parking lot itself which caught her attention. It was what was behind it. She couldn't help herself, she just stopped and stared at the smooth lines and shiny exteriors all the while thinking they were perfect.
It was also a bad idea, she told herself, but a voice in the back of her pointed out that really, would one more hurt at this point? They would certainly solve the problem of navigation. She wouldn't be dealing with cars either and just because she couldn't drive a car didn't mean she couldn't drive one of the bright shiny objects calling out to her. Ok so they wouldn't be a good choice to plow down corpses with but if she was dealing with anything short of a full mob it'd sure to let her get around them. That of course assumed she could figure out how to steer one but really, how hard could it be? Better yet the path seemed clear without a single zombie between her and her goal all of the dead apparently having decided that the front door was the only door. Coming to a decision she grabbed a broom and committed to her choice.
When she left the office to head back to the main show room she found herself being far more cautious. First she listened at the door, then she drew two of her daggers before finally venturing out. The swords still held the main doors closed but the moaning hoard had grown to twice its original size. In some places they were even crawling atop one another to reach her and even as she walked quickly back towards the front doors she was sure she could hear the faint sound of glass beginning to give way. Carefully replacing her swords with the broom she cleaned them off and put them away before turning and sprinting back towards the office. Closing that door behind her she took another quick look to make sure her path was still clear, kept one of her daggers on hand, and then quietly opened the staff entrance while staying ready to force it closed if necessary.
She only took a moment to sigh in relief when she found the back lot still walking dead free and sprinted as quickly and quietly as possible through the parking lot and over the fence.
Buffy had never really noticed her new destination before, the vicinity of the car dealership normally abandoned at night and not being on any of her regular patrol routes. If she had she probably wouldn't have given it any thought. Now she found herself utterly fascinated with the fact that the car dealership was located right beside a motorcycle dealership. She really didn't know anything about motorbikes but she figured that if she couldn't find something to barrel through the zombies with she could at least find something to go around them with instead.
Compared to her trek to the front of the car dealership this trip was quick and quiet. The five zombies she had to dispatch on the way barely registering – the noise of their deaths seamingly covered by the far more vocal hoard still trying to gain entrance to the building she'd left behind. This front door had been locked and she'd had to force her way inside which unfortunately involved smashing through one of the glass doors that was apparently designed to be unsmashable given the shear amount of effort she'd had to put into doing so. Thankfully it wasn't slayer proof but she did end up leaving a clear entrance for any zombies that might follow behind.
To her relief the prettiest looking piece of machinery she'd ever seen was sitting right in the middle of the show room floor waiting for her and as if to make up for her near death experience in the car dealership the owner had even been kind enough to leave the bike with a full tank of gas, something that seemed odd for a vehicle on a showroom floor but she wasn't going to argue something so much to her benefit. It was fate's way of telling her to go for it Buffy decided. Never mind that fate had apparently turned out to be completely and utterly cruel and that every single vehicle in the entire display room might be kept with a full tank of gas for all she knew, that wasn't important. Conveniently enough they even had a very nice silver helmet to go with the equally silver bike and Buffy was, at long last, ready.
Settling herself in the seat she grasped the handlebars and turned the hastily acquired key while holding her breath. Her new toy didn't disappoint. She could feel the solid vibrations beneath her and practically taste the gentle rumbling of the motor. This improved her mood drastically. Of course she didn't know what to do next. She wasn't even sure how she was going to get out of the area without getting mobbed. This all assumed she could figure out how to steer. Looking at all the options she quickly came to various conclusions, possibly incorrect, about what did what. It really couldn't be that much harder than riding a normal bike anyway. It was the same just… faster, with thicker tires, and automated peddling. Sitting down and pretending she was completely sure of herself she took one last look at her options, nodded, and promptly drove the bike directly towards one of the large windows.
During this action she discovered several things. The first was that, surprisingly, motorcycle's really were the way to go. All that extra padding between her and the world must have upset her inner slayer because on the much more open bike everything seemed a whole lot more natural. Driving a car was something she'd had to try and learn... driving a bike was just something she did. The second was that driving through a reinforced window no matter how large was not the smartest decision in the world. The impact nearly threw her from the bike, and she had the sneaking suspicion that the window had almost refused to get out of the way. It had in the end of course and she was soon turning out of the lot towards the highway which required her to first pass the car dealership. The mob of running dead came out of the lot towards her and without any better ideas she just drove right through them, elbowing one that came far too close and kicking off another one that tried to grab onto her leg. It took her several blocks to get away from the corpses sprinting after her and then she quickly discovered the biggest problem with driving a nice shiny bike through the streets of a zombie-infested Sunnydale.
It was loud. Not only was it loud but it was the only vehicle on the streets and every walking corpse in town seemed to hear her coming and try to greet her as she passed. In the end the only way to stay ahead of the bodies that tried to swarm her was to go faster until soon she was barreling down city streets trying to avoid vehicles that had crashed or been simply abandoned in the middle of the road as well as the moaning dead that apparently wanted a taste of her. The faster she went the less likely they could react to the noise she was making and the more likely it was that she'd end up smashed into a building long before she ever reached the city limits. By the time she'd traveled a mere ten blocks it sounded like there were at least a thousand moaning souls following behind her.
Slowing to turn towards where she hoped the highway was she found her path blocked off by a couple of dozen figures rushing towards her from a crashed bus. Each of them snarled at her with a look completely out of character with the blood stained habits they all wore. Not wanting to mutilate a group of dead nuns but also not wanting to get dragged off her bike she used one hand to steer while the other slipped one of the swords from her back and slashed it from one of side to the other. The hands that had reached for her let go just as quickly, the powerful swing having lopped the heads off their owners and she accelerated past before any others could have their try at her.
The rest of the trip to the highway was outside the downtown area and far less populated. Finally able to leave most of her pursuers far behind she breathed a sigh of relief and soon found herself driving on an empty road with no sign of anyone dead or alive as far as she could see.
She savored the feeling knowing it wouldn't last long. If Sunnydale was so overwhelmed then in comparison L.A. would undoubtedly be far, far worse.