Chapter 5

October 31st

Halloween

When Buffy came into the library the next day she found a concerned Giles poring over a small stack of books. "Hey, no studying on the Slayer's day off Giles."

Giles glanced up. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

"Is that why you sound worried?"

Giles sighed. "Faith found a demon early this morning."

"Is she okay?"

"I'm fine B." Faith said, coming in. She had coffee that Buffy suspected had been lifted from the teacher's lounge. "Didn't give me any trouble. Maybe cause somebody'd gotten there 'fore I did."

"What do you mean?"

"Thing was slashed up like it'd pissed off Jason Vorhees or something."

"But, that's a good thing right?" Buffy asked, confused. "Unless it was a good Demon? Are there good Demons?"

"Actually yes but they tend to keep a very low profile. Faith, is this the Demon you saw?" He held up a picture of a large, burly, very nasty looking Demon.

"That's him. Without the dozen or so holes he had in 'im."

Buffy frowned. "He looks tough."

"They are. It's a Gragnock, extremely dangerous."

"Which begs the question," Buffy guessed, "What could have done something like what Faith saw to it."

Trick or Treating was starting early this year. It was barely lunch time and already there were kids being shepherded by teachers and parents going from business to business getting candy. Keri Tate tried to ignore them as she locked her car, and headed for the restaurant. As she went, she found herself distracted by the display in a window.

Last year this store had sold costumes that had turned everyone into whatever they had dressed as. This year it was a jewelry store. And even as on edge as she was, Keri just couldn't help looking. It was less a desire for jewelry as it was for something normal. Something that didn't involve looking over her shoulder every October 31st.

Her glance caught movement in the reflection in the window and she looked up. A tall figure wearing a blue jumpsuit and a white death mask stepped around a tree and stood impassively behind her.

With a gasp, Keri whirled, only to find Will standing there.

"Jesus Will!" she started.

"Woah, sorry." Will caught her arm to steady her. "Sorry, I thought you saw me."

Abashed, she shook her head. "No."

"You see me now?" he teased her.

A few minutes later, Will gazed over the top of his coffee mug at the woman he was beginning to believe he was in love with. Part of it might be the bit of herself she kept to herself. As a counselor, he found it an intriguing challenge. At the moment, she was looking out the window, lost in her own thoughts, toying with her glass of wine. He knew she was a drinker. It wasn't like her to not touch her drink like that.

But then she always got like this around this time of year, he'd noticed.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

After a moment, she sighed. "I think I'm losing John."

That wasn't quite what he'd expected, but he wasn't surprised.

"I think he's finally getting tired of my bullshit." She smirked tiredly at him. "How about you? Are you tired of my bullshit?"

"No I'm a counselor. I'm attracted to it."

"So, counsel me."

"Oh no, I know better. I love you just the way you are."

She leaned forward earnestly. "Do you think it's possible for something so tragic to happen to somebody that they never recover from it?"

"I like to believe that recovery is always possible." he countered. He'd find it hard to talk to some of the students who came to see him otherwise. So many of them had lost someone close to them.

His memory went back to his last session with Buffy. He wondered what had happened to her that she had run away? The reports he'd gotten were not even half the story he was sure.

Keri was silent, struggling with her conflicting desires to keep everything bottled up and appear strong, and to let this man she was falling so hard for in.

"There's a little, back story I haven't been entirely successful with." she managed finally.

"I know." he said patiently.

She went on with a litany of things she had tried to help herself get over what had happened to her all those years ago. "Everything."

"That's not everything." he told her.

"Oh yeah?" she challenged him, wiping still forming tears from her eyes. "What else is there?"

"I'm a really good listener."

Giles was discovering to his surprise, that he could quite get to like Halloween. He'd always enjoyed the irony of it all. That the night people most expected to be full of ghouls and goblins was the night they all stayed in. And then there was the candy.

He may not have the biggest sweet tooth there was, but he did have a secret stash of sweets from home.

So despite his objections to the children's insistence on a party in the library, he had gotten into the spirit of things. A bit.

While he and Willow attempted to narrow down the suspects in the killing of the demon, Faith raided the candy bowl and the others decorated.

Faith had a twizzler sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she looked through Giles' contribution to the festivities.

It turned out he had a secret stash of horror movies on VHS as well. He was intrigued by the Horror genre in general. Some movies he liked because he got to analyze just what the writers and directors had gotten right or wrong. Some he enjoyed because of his secret knowledge that they were based on true events. Some he enjoyed because they were complete fabrications. The fact that people could still come up with new things when the world was full of strangeness appealed to him. And then some were just fun.

"Plan 9 From Outer Space?" Faith grinned, taking the twizzler from her mouth.

"There's something to be said for someone who can gain fans for making bad movies." Giles said, smirking slightly. "Now Faith, describe to me again what it was you saw?"

Faith, even before taking up the mantle of Slayer, had lived in a somewhat bad part of town. So there were some things she could tell on first sight, that folks who'd lived comparatively sheltered lives like Buffy and the others wouldn't. Such as stab wounds.

"You're sure they weren't claw marks?" Willow asked.

"I'm a Slayer from the wrong side of the tracks." Faith retorted with a cocky grin. "Sorry I didn't get any pictures for ya."

Buffy looked over from where she was directing Oz and Xander in the fine art of streamer hanging.

"So we're not looking for a demon? It was some kind of demon hunter? As long as they're not after werewolves, where's the bad?"

"It would take someone with far greater strength than a normal person to be able to pierce even the chinks in a Gragnock's armor." Giles said.

"Neither of you have died recently have you?" Xander asked.

"The timing also troubles me." Giles went on. "A violent killing of this nature on or near Halloween...it seems familiar. And not, I'm afraid, in a good way."

Sneaking off campus was not necessary for most seniors. As they were allowed to leave school grounds for lunch. For John however, who had an over protective mother, some sneaking had been needed.

But he'd drawn the line at the next part of his and Charlie's lunchtime adventure. Which was why he was leaning against a lamp post outside a liquor store, conspicuously trying to look innocent.

Finally, his friend emerged from the store. The moment he was out of sight of the door and the front window, he showed John the fruits of his labors. A bottle of red wine, filched under the proprietor's very nose. Charlie had no aspirations to make thieving his life's work, but he was rather good at it.

"God," John laughed, "I can't believe we're doing this."

"Desperate measures." Charlie countered.

"It's illegal."

"It's harmless. And expected. Studies have shown that all teenagers have shoplifted at some point."

"What studies?" John rolled his eyes.

"Hey we could have avoided this whole thing if you'd just scored some of your mom's booze."

"Look my mom's a functioning alcoholic. She accounts for every-"

"John!"

John and Charlie froze.

Oh crap. John thought. He though his mom was in the lounge grading papers, like she usually was during lunch.

Kerri for her part was incredulous. Of all the days for John to pull this. To be someplace he wasn't supposed to be. For him in a manner of speaking, to be out of her sight. When she knew where he was she could feel a modicum of security. But if he was going off...

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, ignoring the horrified look on Charlie's face. He wasn't her responsibility.

Charlie just hoped she didn't notice the bulge under his jacket.

John tried to be non-nonchalant. "Nothing, just grabbing a little off campus lunch."

Kerri didn't care what the school said, she had her own rules for her son. "You're not allowed to have little off campus lunches John. You know that."

She glared at Charlie. He was essentially a good kid, but he did seem to be the one to encourage John into getting trouble.

She was too mad, and scared to talk about this now. She shook her head and turned away. "C'mon, I'll drive you back."

She led them towards the car, then stopped. No. She couldn't let this fester. If she didn't get this over with now it would just be worse for herself and for John later.

"You know what?" she handed Charlie the keys. "Get in the car, I'll be right there."

The moment Charlie headed for the car, Keri rounded on her son. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

John ducked his head, not so much from the anger as expletive. His mother didn't swear.

"Mom I'm really uncomfortable with you saying that word." he mumbled.

"Well then don't put me in the position John. Do you know what today is?"

Like he could forget. All his life this day had been drummed into him. And it was beginning to grow tiresome.

"Of all the days for you to pull this shit," she went on, "What do you think you can do? Just, wander around town? I don't ask you for much, just give me this one day!"

And now John was through. He was through living in this shadow, he was through with his mother's bullshit. "Mom I've given you 17 years!"

"And I need you to be responsible, do you know what that means?"

"Mom I am not responsible for you!"

People on the street looked at them awkwardly and hurried on.

"That's it I've had it." John went on. "He's dead. Okay? Michael Meyers is dead."

Keri looked down. The name itself was more taboo between them than the name of the day.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked softly.

"That it's over?" he suggested. This couldn't go on. It would destroy them if she couldn't get past this. "That we should try to go on with some semblance of a happy existence. Because all the shit that's going on in your head is leaking out on me and I can't take it anymore." This wasn't exactly how or where he'd pictured this conversation happening. But it was out now and he had to go with it or he may never have the courage to confront her again.

"You told me yourself you watched him burn."

"I didn't exactly stay to see his ashes." Keri couldn't even look at John. The weight of 20 years of annual terror was pressing down on her and add to that the hurt she could hear in her son's voice...

"Mom it's been 20 years. Don't you think he would have shown up by now? What's he waiting for huh?" He waited for her to answer, but she didn't. So finally he gave up and headed for the car.

"Okay Mom. I can't live like this. I'm sorry."

She spun, remembering what she had just been talking to Will about at lunch. "What does that mean?"

"If you want to stay handcuffed to your dead brother that's fine, but you're not dragging me along. Not anymore."

to be continued...