Chapter 86
The Dance
Further into the woods, two girls in sparkling gowns spotted a log cabin. With the rifle in Buffy's hands, she led Morgan through the foliage toward the small building, abandoned and decrepit, just like the hiking trail they'd veered off of. The girls ran inside of the one-room cabin, barely furnished with ratty plaid curtains hanging off of the windows and a waiter-stained mattress. Buffy quickly dragged a chair up against the knob of the front door, but she doubted there was much in this cabin to hold back her hunters; except for herself and her new weapon - not that she knew how to work it.
She glanced at Morgan. "We should be safe for a while," she said, circling the place to close the flimsy curtains, "You need to find a weapon."
Morgan whimpered, looking like she was getting smaller and smaller in the middle of the room. "I'm gonna die," she sobbed.
"Yeah, you are, if you just stand there," Buffy grumbled, closing the last curtain, though it still let the moonlight shine in like a spotlight on their hiding place.
"Oh, God," Morgan cried, "I'm never gonna be crowned homecoming queen. Or graduate high school. Or go to Penn and date cute college guys."
Morgan weeped hysterically as Buffy peered out of the windows, still holding her rifle upwards, resting on her shoulder.
"Yes, you are. We're getting out of here and we're going back to Mr. Schuester's office, where he and the rest of the weapons live. I'm going to take these guys out and make it back to the dance right in time for you to congratulate me on my victory as homecoming queen."
Morgan glared at the blonde and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, the petals of her corsage tickling her cheek. "Over my dead body."
She raised her purse - a skinny cylindrical clutch - that had been dangling from the crook of her elbow, and rifled through it, producing one sleek Samsung cellphone. Buffy widened her eyes at it.
"You had your phone with you and you didn't think it would be helpful until just now?" she grimaced.
"It doesn't matter," Morgan frowned at the dull glow of the screen, "No reception out here. I only have one bar."
Buffy's stomach sank. "Well, maybe one is enough," she said hopefully, and grabbed the phone from Morgan, "I'm guessing you don't have any of my friends numbers in your contacts."
Morgan wrinkled her nose. "Ew, no."
Buffy frowned and dialed the only number she knew by heart. She swore at the ground when she got his voicemail. "Mr. Schuester? It's Buffy. Me and Morgan are stuck in a cabin in the woods. It's like a bad horror movie… We're in big trouble-"
Buffy took the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen.
"What's wrong?" Morgan asked eagerly.
Buffy frowned. "Lost connection," she sighed, and handed back the phone, "We gotta get out of here."
"Do you think he got the message?" asked Morgan, as Buffy turned to peer outside the window again, keeping watch.
"I hope so," she mumbled, wondering how safe it was to just wait around while monsters prowled outside.
"Why is it that wherever you go, violence and terror follows?" Morgan asked bitterly, shoving her phone back into her clutch.
"You're asking me?" Buffy scoffed.
"Your life is so messed up and I'm not going to let you drag me down with you, okay? My life would've been just fine if you weren't around to screw everything up."
Buffy scowled at the girl. "There's the door. You're welcome to leave and walk back into your perfect, Wonder Bread life."
Morgan plopped down on the mattress and glared at Buffy. "All I wanted was homecoming queen."
"That's all I wanted too, Morgan," Buffy grimaced, "I spent everything I saved all summer on this dumb dress."
"Why do you even care about homecoming? Girls who spend their evenings toting assault rifles around, looking for monsters to kill, generally don't concern themselves with high school festivities."
"Because this isn't all I have going for me. I'm not just Buffy, the vampire slayer. I used to care about this girly stuff."
"But that was before-"
"Before it was my job to save the world. I just wanted one night to feel like I was the old me. I wanted the most important thing in my life to be a dance and a plastic crown, because it's simple. It's uncomplicated. Simple, uncomplicated girls don't get stuck in the middle of the woods, fighting for their lives."
Morgan frowned at the floor and shook her head. "That makes no sense."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "I knew you wouldn't understand."
"You're right, I don't. You want to know why I want that crown so badly? Why I want my team to get the national championship? Why I want my face plastered all over the yearbook? Because that's all I have. I'm not a super genius, or Broadway-bound," she sighed, waving her hand through the air like she was trailing a shooting star, "I'm going to be one of those suburban moms in Juicy tracksuits, obsessed with looking just as good as they did in high school because at least back then, they could still trick themselves into believing they had potential. That crown and that trophy and that yearbook will be the only proof that I was a somebody. What do you need it for? You've already stopped the apocalypse twice before you even got your learner's permit."
Buffy smirked. Leave it to Morgan to accidentally make the slayer feel better about herself in an attempt to garner some sympathy. The blonde shrugged at the rhetorical question and cocked her gun.
"I look cute in a tiara."
Morgan snapped her head in the direction of the window at the sound of some rustling leaves outside. "Do you hear-"
One of the windows shattered to pieces as a figure barrelled through, tearing the curtains off their rods. Morgan screamed and Buffy ducked out of the way as a yellow-skinned demon landed in the room, wielding curved blades in his thorny hands. Buffy aimed her gun and pulled the trigger, but ended up shooting an empty wine bottle that had been left on the dusty table.
She tossed the gun aside and jumped up, grabbing a hold onto the ceiling fan and sending a swift kick to the demon's face. He fell back, the knives falling out of his hands. Morgan scrambled to pick up the blades while the demon jumped back and got toe-to-toe with the slayer, ready to pounce, when something landed at their feet. It was a metal something that looked like a squat tarpoon, ticking loudly. Buffy and the demon glanced at each other before running in opposite directions.
The slayer grabbed Morgan and the two of them sailed out of the already broken window. The demon jumped against another one to break the glass, but to his dismay, it was boarded up. With the demon still inside and the girls running away, trying to find the old hiking trail, the metal device exploded, blowing up the whole cabin in a fiery embrace. The girls were pushed down to the ground from the force of the explosion, and though both were unharmed, they lifted their heads to find themselves covered in soot, their hair a tangled mess of leaves and small, hot splinters of wood.
Buffy winced as she lifted herself off of the ground. "We have to get back to McKinley."
xxx
"They're heading west. Back into town."
Al Motta looked up from where he sat, slouched back in his office chair, his feet up on his mahogany desk. The German hacker, a senior citizen with all of the coolest gadgets, was sitting across from him holding a hand-held tracking device, narrowing his gray eyes at the pulsing green dots on the screen. Al smirked as he tore his eyes away from a local newspaper.
"They got away?" he asked, impressed.
"Temporarily," said the hacker with comfortable certainty.
Al nodded. "Well, give it up for the slayers. These broads got character."
His eyes darted to the office door when he heard the doorbell sound loudly throughout the house. He quirked an eyebrow and listened intently for the sound of the maid's heels click-clacking on the polished tiles of the foyer. He heard muffled voices and knew that as the maid's clicking heels got louder, she was coming to fetch him. He stood up and met her at the door.
"Mr. Motta," she said timidly, clasping her soft, wrinkled hands together, "There are police officers asking for you."
Al frowned. "Thanks, Consuela. How 'bout you go make me a scotch on the rocks while I take care of 'em?"
xxx
Buffy and Morgan walked in brisk unison down one of McKinley's main hallways - the fastest route to Mr. Schuester's office. They could hear the faint thumping of music coming from the gym but didn't stop to see how homecoming was going.
"Rambo and Spongebob are down and out," Buffy said, partly to herself, as they walked side-by-side, "If we take out the Germans and the vampires, we can still make homecoming."
"What are they hunting us down for, anyways? What did we ever do to them?" asked Morgan.
"Hello? Slayers have a tendency to ruin a lot of evil creepy-crawly fun," said Buffy, as they finally reached her watcher's office, "We just need to find Mr. Sch-"
The office door swung open and a vampire woman in purple zebra-print leather pants and a lace pink shirt fringed with feathers grabbed Buffy's wrist and pulled her into the small office, tossing the slayer aside and giving her a roundhouse kick to the chest. Morgan jumped back, landing against a file cabinet, and noticed Mr. Schuester lying on the office floor, unconscious. Mrs. Vamp grabbed Buffy's head and slammed her into a bookshelf while her other half stood on the sidelines behind the desk and watched, a ten-gallon hat on his head and his fangs bared in a sinister smile. While the slayer was down, she kicked at the vampire's legs and made her fall to the floor.
"Buffy!" Morgan called after she scrounged up a stake from one of Mr. Schuester file cabinets and tossed it to the slayer.
Buffy hopped up and caught the stake, quickly jabbing at the vampire before she threw a trashcan down on Buffy's head. Buffy fell to the floor in a heap and the vampire looked pleased with herself, until she looked down and noticed the stake sticking out of her chest.
"Candy!" cried Mr. Vamp, as his wife turned to dust, "Oh, Candy. I'm gonna kill both you slayers for this! You hear me?!"
Morgan frowned, glancing at Buffy, rousing on the ground, and back at the vampire. "I'd think twice about that if I were you."
"Excuse me, little missy?!" the vamp demanded, scrunching his already wrinkled demon's face in anger.
"Buffy and I have already taken out a bunch of cronies, not to mention your girlfriend-"
"Wife!"
"Whatever. The point is, Buffy's just a runner-up. I'm the queen. You saw what she can do. What do you think I'm gonna do when you get me mad?" she asked, taking a step closer to the vamp.
He trained his eyes on the ceiling like he was mulling it over, then quickly sidestepped away from Morgan and ran out of the office. Morgan exhaled, smiling widely, in disbelief that he bought her bluff, just as Buffy raised herself from the ground.
"Well, that'll teach him to mistake you for a slayer," she smirked, and looked down at her watcher, who was coming to on the floor, "Will, you okay?"
Will blinked as Buffy leaned down to help him up, pulling him toward her by the shoulders. He clutched his head as he stood and balanced himself. "I'm fine. Vampires-"
"We got rid of 'em," said Buffy, "For now. We still have two snipers on our hands, but by now we have them outnumbered."
"I'm sorry, Buffy," Will sighed, wincing from the ache in his head, "I feel like this is partly my fault. I gave Rachel the okay to switch the limo plans. I didn't know there would be some sort of slayer hunt."
"That's not even weirdest part," Morgan frowned.
Buffy widened her eyes. "That's right, I forgot! The person who set up the whole thing was Sugar Motta's father. Will, Sugar's dad is a vampire."
"That can't be right."
"Think about it. Have you ever seen him around in the daytime?"
Will frowned and shook his head. "What is a vampire doing with a wife and daughter?"
Buffy shrugged. "I don't know, but I smell serious trouble."
"As if anything could get any worse than this night," Morgan scowled.
Buffy smirked. "Don't pretend you don't feel a little badass."
Morgan pursed her lips and then smiled. "Maybe a little. Plus, we got these free corsages."
"Yes, free accessories. There's always a silver lining."
Will smirked and raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember Rachel mentioning corsages."
Buffy narrowed her eyes down at the rose on her dress strap. "Rambo said the Germans were hooked into a computer system…"
Buffy met her watcher's eyes and they both shared a knowing look. Buffy grabbed the flower off of her dress and ruffled through the petals to find a small black device, no bigger than the nail on her pinky finger.
"They're hooked into us."
"They'll be coming any second!" Morgan cried, "What do we do?!"
Buffy bit her bottom lip in concentration as she stared down at the miniscule tracking device. "We need to get some wet toilet paper."
xxx
The cops, who looked like two blue-collar rookies, had shoved a black bag over Mr. Motta's head and threw him into the back of their squad car. Al knew immediately that they were too strong for humans, but there were already whispers in the neighborhood that the Mottas came from a mob family and he didn't want to give them anymore ammunition by causing a scene in front of his house. He used his sense of direction to determine that the car and the silent drivers were heading to the northernmost part of Lima, where they kept their good salons, their high-class office buildings and their news studio. Far away from the downtown police department. His suspicions were right; these pigs weren't human. They weren't even pigs.
They eventually parked and dragged Al out of the car, dragging him into an air-conditioned building. Though it was late, there were still cellphones ringing and heels click-clacking against tiled floors. The strangest part, Al thought as he strained his ears, is that no-one seemed to be reacting to the man being pushed around with a bag over his head. He had a bad feeling about this. They brought him to the top floor and finally, as they entered a quiet room, pulled the bag off of his head.
Al's eyes immediately adjusted to the light and he took in the vanity table with it's high-wattage light-bulbs lining the mirror, the velvet lounge pushed to the edge of the room and the autographed picture of Casey Kasem. Al wrinkled his nose. It was a dressing room. Before he could wonder whose it was, the door opened and closed behind him and he turned around to see a familiar looking guy wearing a sleek, dark gray suit and a red tie, his hair a wave of dark blond. He looked like a politician.
"Do I know you?" Al asked, puffing out his chest.
The guy just smiled at Al, flashing a wide row of TV-white teeth. "Well, everyone knows me!" he said chipperly, "I'm quite the egg around Lima."
Al frowned. "Yeah, well, I'm new in town. Where am I?"
"You're in the studio for WOHN-TV," he exclaimed, displaying his palms around the dressing room, like it was obvious, "I'm Rod Remington, co-anchor for News 8.
"Right," Al smirked, "I thought I recognized you. You're on TV every night with that foxy Andrea Carmichael broad."
"Ab-so-lutely," Rod said proudly, "And I know who you are, too. You're Al Motta. Please, sit down."
Rod gestured to his velvet lounge and as he took a seat on the edge of it, Al hesitantly joined him.
"Well, isn't that an exciting suit," Rod smiled at Al's electric blue pinstripes.
Al shrugged. "Clothes make the man," he smirked, taking a toothpick out of his breast pocket and sticking it under a fang.
"As I understand, you're not a man," Rod said with a knowing smirk.
Al frowned. "And what are you trying to say, exactly?"
"Oh, no need to be hostile, Mr. Motta. I've been reporting the news in Lima for quite some time now. The people here trust me to tell them the truth. The catch is, if I tell them something they don't want to hear... let's just say small town folk have a habit of shooting the messenger."
Al rolled his eyes. "If this is the point where you tell me I don't fit into this little slice of nowhere you got here, you can skip it. I own property, I have a kid in school, I pay my taxes. I'm a hardworking individual. It's just that my work is a little unconventional, see."
Rod just smiled. "It's great to hear that you have a child. A girl?"
Al hesitated, quirking an eyebrow. "Uh-huh."
"Beautiful. I believe that children are the future."
"Do you now?"
"I sure do. Children are the foundation of our community. And they rely on us for guidance. Control. That said, I believe the rebellious elements need to be… taken care of."
Al flashed a toothy grin. "I got a few rebellious elements being taken care of this very night."
"So I've heard. That's quite an idea you have there. Slayerfest. It's the bee's knees! Catchy name, too. Just the kind of creativity I need on my team."
"Oh, yeah? And what if I don't want to be apart of no team?"
Rod smiled again, his lips stretched to their limit, like a shark. "I don't think that'll be a problem. I have a feeling you and I are going to be great pals."
xxx
Fairy lights sparkled in the gym and Rachel clutched her plastic cup of punch, pulling her eyebrows together at the gigantic scoreboard mounted high on the farthest wall, displaying the time.
"They're going to announce queen any minute now," she pouted, "What's keeping them?"
Quinn shrugged, her eyes trailing around all of her friends who sat at the same table, patiently waiting as the nominees gathered onstage. This was not at all how she imagined her senior homecoming dance would play out and she had to smile to herself because of it. It was an occasion she'd been anticipating since freshman year, when she assumed she would be class president, head cheerleader and the frontrunner for the coveted crown.
There was a display case at the end of the hall at her parent's house that boasted her family's shiniest accomplishments. Her father's plaques and medals from high school and college sports and her sister's badges and trophies that boasted victories in her many attempts to be the ultimate overachiever. Her favorite pieces in the case were always her mother's many tiaras. Homecoming queen. Prom princess. Belle of the Winter Ball. Quinn had envied each perfectly polished plastic jewel and envisioned the day when she'd shove her family's achievements out of the way to make room for her own crowns and blunt-ended scepters.
"Quinn? Where are you?" Rachel asked, a smile on her face as she peered at her girlfriend.
Quinn snapped out of her faraway reminiscence. "Sorry. Just thinking."
"About what?"
"About how everything ended up. How this is our last year and it's the end of an era and… I'm just really happy about the people I get to spend it with."
Around the table, her fellow scoobies and glee clubbers gave her a sarcastic 'awww'.
"Whatever," she rolled her eyes, smiling and giggling as her friends heckled and Blaine threw a balled-up cocktail napkin at her.
Tina smiled brightly, more genuinely than she had all night. She'd seemed distant and solemn, slipping away from dancing and conversation to be alone, noticeably without Artie, her rumored date. Quinn had wanted to ask her about it earlier, but then she'd been whisked away by Rachel, who was screaming about how this was her favorite Rihanna song and they had to dance.
Quinn noticed Tina's smile quickly dropping as she shifted her gaze to over her shoulder. She spun around in her seat to see Buffy and Morgan making their way toward their table, their dresses ripped, their bodies covered in dirt, sweat and soot. Their hair fell out of its clips and ties and small, dried bits of leaves were stuck to the back of their heads. The scoobies gaped at them as they neared, both panting heavily, their eyes wide.
"What did you two do to each other?!" Rachel exclaimed.
Kurt knitted his brow. "Oh, no, is this the danger? Was my vision right?"
"It was right," Buffy nodded, "I just wish it had been a tad more specific."
"What happened?" asked Tina.
"We were hunted," Morgan said dramatically, "It was like a Liam Neeson movie if Liam Neeson were two homecoming queen nominees."
"I take that to mean you took care of it, with the help of your certain set of skills?" asked Kurt.
"Yeah," Buffy nodded.
"It was insane!" Morgan waved her hand in a flourish, "There were bear traps. Torpedos. A cabin in the woods exploded. I struck fear into the heart of a vampire and then we found out they put tracking devices in our corsages, so Buffy rolled them up in wet toilet paper and threw them at the snipers so they ended up shooting each other."
"That would make an amazing Liam Neeson movie," nodded Quinn.
"Wait, but who was hunting you?!" asked Rachel.
"Shhh!" Buffy demanded, waving a shushing hand at Rachel as Principal Figgins took to the stage with two red envelopes in his hand.
"It's time for the moment we've all been waiting for," he announced as the crowd quietened down, "All votes have been cast and it's time to announce your homecoming royalty for the class of 2014. Without further adieu, this year's homecoming king is…"
People giddily waited as Figgins pulled open the first envelope and smiled.
"Noah Puckerman!"
The crowd cheered and a few girl wolf-whistled, but after a few long moments as Figgins peered out into the crowd, it was apparent that Puck wasn't coming up to accept his crown.
"Well, it looks as if Mr. Puckerman has stepped out," he said, clearing his throat, "Moving on, I will now announce this year's homecoming queen."
Almost every girl in attendance held their breath as Figgins opened the second envelope.
"I am excited to announce this year's homecoming queen is…"