Author's notes: Billy Jack was an action series of movies in the 70s. One of them had bikers. It is cheesy. And it is awesome.
That night, Sam paced the kitchen nervously, pulling the window curtain aside every so often to glance outside, and then turn away. Edgar and Alan just watched him from the kitchen table, arms crossed. He still hadn't told them. Because he didn't really know how to go about it now, or what they'd even do if they found out he was trying to protect his brother from what they'd see as a well-earned staking. Sam hadn't forgotten Mike mentioning the people he'd killed. The fact that he could even bring himself to do something like that...it was seriously messed up. And even if they stayed at the house, boarded up the room, surrounded themselves with crosses and holy stuff...they wouldn't be able to hide away forever. If the vamps wanted them dead, they'd probably be a lot smarter about it this time around. Sam...was on the verge of a panic attack.
"Why are you so nervous?" Edgar growled, leaning forward and clasping his hands over his knees.
"Nervous? I'm not nervous," Sam shook his head furiously, nearly slipping on a dishcloth he'd knocked to the ground when he leaned against the counter.
"Fess up, Sam. You said you were gonna tell us what you saw." Alan shoved himself away from the table and stood up.
He heard her long before he saw her coming. There was no mistaking the clanking and screeching of Roxie's rusted Oldsmobile. To celebrate her arrival, a parade of gray smoke puffed and puttered out of the back as she pulled up to the front of the house, manically honking her horn to get his attention before she even pulled into park.
Sam glanced out the window, and then back to the Frog brothers, who by now were both standing and closing in on him. "MIKESAVAMPIREANDALLTHESHITSUCKERSAREBACKSOWENEEDTOWATCHOURBACKSCAUSETHEY'REGONNAPROBABLYTRYTOTEAROURASSESANEWONETONIGHT..." He gasped out in one long panicked stream before dashing out of the kitchen.
Alan and Edgar were stunned into silence. That was...actually a lot worse than either of them expected.
"So...you catch all of that?" Edgar turned to his brother.
Alan nodded, crossing his arms. "Shoulda brought more stakes..."
As Sam pulled open the passenger side door, he wasn't really quite...prepared to see what Roxanne had done to herself. She'd always been a bit crazy, a bit loud, and even a bit cute...but going from blonde waves to a hot pink buzzcut...that was a little extreme, even for him. Of course, the green gator-skin cowboy boots, Johnny Rotten t-shirt, and cut-off denim shorts didn't help either. But she always dressed like that.
"What the hell did you do to yourself?!" He exclaimed, sliding into the car while Edgar and Alan piled into the backseat without so much as saying a word. Good. He didn't want to talk about all the vampire bullshit with Roxie. She'd probably lap it up.
"You don't like?" Roxanne gingerly touched her hair, the longest part being a chunk of side-swept bangs that fell over the left eye of her John Lennon sunglasses. "I think it's pretty bitchin'. Gives me that...punk rocker wild child kinda groove, y'know?" She blew a large bubble with the bubblegum she was smacking, giggling madly when it popped all over her bangs. "Oops..." Reaching up with long pink nails to match the hair, Roxanne slowly began to untangle strings of sticky candy from her face.
Sam smiled weakly, slinking down in his seat as he began to buckle his seat-belt. "You look great, Roxie...it's just...I wasn't expecting it, is all." He gestured to her bubble-gum coated hair.
"I don't think we've introduced ourselves," Edgar rasped, leaning forward and shoving his hand over Roxanne's shoulder. She paused in sticking a piece of gum back into her mouth, then used the same hand she'd been picking at the candy with to awkwardly squeeze and shake his in greeting. "Nice ta meetcha. Name's Roxanne. Roxie for short. I'm killer's eye candy. I'm the reason he's up late at night rockin' the mattress all alone, if ya know what I mean," she gave a bit of a snort and laugh, making Sam cover his face in embarrassment.
"Roxie," Sam pleaded, trying to get her to shut up.
"I'm Edgar. This is my brother, Alan. We used to run a comic shop on the boardwalk and defend Santa Carla from the unholy dead," Edgar explained, seemingly un-phased by Roxanne's social skills (or lack thereof).
"Cool. Cool. Hey, that's the place that got shish-kebabed, right? Went up in smoke last summer? Bit the big one at the end of a cigarette butt?" Roxanne rubbed the end of her nose, itching it and snorting slightly as her sunglasses slipped down from her eyes.
"Yeah," Alan chimed in, leaning back in his seat and frowning. He didn't seem to be too hot on Roxie.
Roxanne turned the key in the ignition and revved her engine, while 'Dancing With Myself' began to blare from the car radio at max volume.
"HOLD ONTO YER JOCK STRAPS, LADIES!" She shouted, pealing off and out of the driveway. Sam was used to this...but he noticed through the rear-view mirror that for once, the Frogs were the scared ones. Good. He smirked and glanced back over at Roxie. She did have her good points, when you got past the...everything.
She stood at the entrance to the cave, watching the boys depart. So they'd figured her out...she hadn't been quick enough. Should have dealt with Marko earlier in the day so Dwayne couldn't help him. Her shell, her former body, howled below in frustration. For a much different reason. Star was becoming restless. She couldn't get much further than the cave before she was pushed or shoved back by some unseen force, so it wasn't like she could follow the boys and force mysterious accidents to happen.
Sinking back into the cave, she gave the equivalent of a sigh, and wondered it perhaps...just perhaps...there was another option. She already decided she was going to save Michael's death for last, for some sentimental reason she couldn't really grasp anymore. But he was the easiest to possess. The others...she had a tentative hold at best. If only there was someone...human...nearby. It would make things much easier.
She'd even tried taking hold of Thorn, but the hell-hound was the most resistant out of all of them. Star would have to figure out a way to distract the damn thing long enough so there'd be no warning when she tried to possess one of the boys again. But who would she try it on next? Settling down on the couch, the Shadow of Star pondered this choice...and Thorn wasn't surprised at all when he heard a strange hissing laughter disturb his nap. He growled in her direction from his spot by the fountain.
David pulled his bike to a full stop, soon followed by the rest of the gang. Marko and Paul dashed off through the crowd once they'd arrived, already anxious to find quick meals and replenish their blood. Which left David, Dwayne, and Michael. They didn't need to feed tonight, but it was an unspoken agreement that at the moment they were probably safest to discuss their little ghost problem far away from the cave.
"We can't use holy water. Can't use a priest. There pretty much aren't many other traditional options," David decided it best to initiate the conversation mentally. He didn't generally broadcast their personal problems where any normal human could hear. That would just be begging for trouble, given some of the vigilante freaks like those Frogs walking around. Speaking of which, he and Marko had yet to make proper plans to visit them in Florida for more payback yet. Maybe when they were done dealing with Star's cranky dead ass.
"No shamans around this city either, as far as I know," Dwayne replied.
"We could just try talking to her," Michael, ever the optimist when it came to Star. Hell, that was why they were in this situation in the first place.
"And tell her what, Michael? 'Please stop trying to kill us, we're all terribly sorry Michael trapped you and your living corpse in our den'?" David drawled, laughing aloud at the idea.
Michael shrugged, not really seeing the problem. They hadn't actively tried communicating with her yet, so how did they know it wouldn't work?
"Not hard to tell your parents were hippies," Dwayne smirked.
Just as Michael was getting prepared to tell them both where they could shove their Star problems, he caught something out of the corner of his eye, and wasn't too terribly happy...or surprised to see it. Standing right in front of a jewelry store, a small group huddled together. The Frogs, covering their faces (very obviously) with newspapers, his sheepish-looking brother who seemed to be trying to desperately shove the others out of sight and looking over at him apologetically...as if that was going to help him...and a pretty hyper-looking girl with hot pink hair to match her cotton candy while she chortled like a hyena at the Frogs.
"Jesus Christ, Sam..." Michael rubbed at his temples, and glanced over at both Dwayne and David. They'd already caught sight of the group, and he just knew this was going to be yet another bad night.
"What're you doing?!" Roxie struggled to catch her breath, not really understanding Sam's friends, or why they were standing still as statues with newspapers in front of their faces...after having cut eye-holes through them. But they sure were funny!
"Ed. Alan. We can't just stand around here! They're looking right at us!" Sam pleaded, trying to push himself up against both of them, and only managing to force them to jostle their papers a bit.
"We can't turn our backs on them now, Sam, we gotta stay alert!" Edgar insisted.
"Them? Them, who?" Roxanne's eyes grew as wide as dishes. "...Are there like...Russian spies around here somewhere?" She whispered, glancing around as she shoved a large piece of cotton candy in her mouth and smacked her lips. "Red Dawn in Santa Carla...that would be bitchin'..." She mused, grinning. Bits of pink spun sugar clung to her teeth.
"Roxie, can you help me here? And no, there aren't any Russian spies here, just those douche bags on the bikes," he nodded his head towards Mike, David, and Dwayne...then took a deep breath when he realized there were two missing. Oh shit...oh shit...oh shit...
"Ohhhhhh!" Roxie exclaimed, covering her mouth with one hand. "Ohmygosh, I haven't like...I haven't seen those boogers in like...a year! You got some kinda beef with them? Man, I heard a lotta weeeeird stuff about those guys. Like...National Enquirer weird. I heard one of them is two midgets in a suit," She narrowed her eyes, and nudged Sam with her elbow. "...You get into a turf war with a freaky biker gang? Don't tell me you pulled a Billy Jack on them! I didn't know you had it in ya, killer!"
Roxie was marvelously, impressively, and hopelessly...oblivious in every respect of the word.
"So...which of us is gonna go talk to them?" Alan asked, voice quivering slightly. Given their last run-in, he was just glad he couldn't see the Twisted Sister lookalike anywhere. Or the little one.
"Why do we wanna do that? And how the hell are they even walking around?!" Edgar rasped, growing more and more nervous with each passing second. They could be all talk when they weren't actively faced with the monsters, but the reality was far different. Suddenly they both...kind of wished Sam hadn't told them the secret he'd been hiding.
"LOOKIE WHAT I FOUND!" Paul's hands slapped down hard on both Edgar and Alan's backs, and the Frog brothers stumbled forward, only to feel sharp claws dig into their respective shoulders.
"...Shit..." Sam whispered, not even having to turn around to know the other one was standing behind him, smirking, biting on his gloved thumb.
"Whoa...mondo freaky," Roxie lowered her cotton candy and gasped. She leaned over to Sam and whispered in his ear, which he really wished she wouldn't. "Hey, killer...I'm gettin' mad bad vibes from these dudes. They're really harshing my aura..."
"...I just want to be the first to say...We're really sorry about the bath," Edgar whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut tight, half-expecting the vampire behind them to tear his throat out right then and there.