Welcome To The Slaughterhouse, Part 7-10
Sep. 10th, 2005 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyChapters 7-10 of "Welcome To The Slaughterhouse", continued from here.
Chapter 7: Protection
"But if you hurt what's mine
I'll sure as hell retaliate"
- Massive Attack
After Willow ran off Tara sank to the floor, leaned her back against the doorframe and closed her eyes. She heard her girlfriend's footsteps disappear down the hall and fade away, and then she was once again completely alone.
The walls were thick in this house. For most of her childhood, that had been a source of comfort, something that made it possible to sleep; few of the screams from downstairs got in, and none of the sobs from in here got out. Now it felt like a curse — anything could be happening to Willow just downstairs and she wouldn't hear it, wouldn't know, wouldn't be able to help in any way. She couldn't handle that. She had to do something.
Crossing her legs and straightening her back, Tara tried to focus. She'd read lots of different protection spells over the years; some which were supposed to work, others which had not worked for centuries... she was too upset to recall any of them word for word, but of course magic didn't work in this house anyway as long as her mother's curse was still upon it, and as far as Tara knew that hadn't changed.
But maybe prayers did.
And so she improvised, mixing in bits and pieces of protection spells while calling on any reasonably benevolent Goddess she could think of — Isis, Artemis, Freya, Demeter, Minerva, Lakshmi... praying, pleading, begging, demanding, promising to do anything; to sacrifice, to give back to the Earth, even to stay here and take care of her family forever... just as long as Willow was safe from harm tonight.
* * *
Dawn awoke from unconsciousness slowly, as if drifting up from deep underwater. Even after she was fully awake, it was a long time before her shell-shocked brain remembered how to move her muscles. She looked at her surroundings; a dark basement, reeking of things she didn't want to think about, all sorts of junk strewn around... she wasn't tied up, but the door looked pretty tough. And of course, in one corner, there was Giles hunched over Willow's body. Dawn watched them for several minutes before she spoke. "Is she alive?"
Giles had checked Willow’s pulse at least a dozen times in the first hour after they threw her in with him and Dawn, but in the last two hours he hadn’t dared to. Now he steeled himself and once again put his fingers on her neck. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. "She’s fine." That was a lie, of course; apart from the very faint pulse, the hardly noticeable breath she'd draw now and then, and the steel grip she still held on a small bloodied object in her hand, Willow lay perfectly still and might as well be...
"She doesn’t look fine. She looks dead." Dawn's voice was oddly flat when she scooted over to Willow’s side. Before Giles could stop her, she lifted the blood-soaked shirt he had wrapped around the deathly pale redhead's belly. "Yup. Dead. No way she'll survive that."
Giles couldn't really disagree; after all, he could see right into Willow's innards, she had lost a huge amount of blood and he supposed she was slipping into coma territory; he honestly couldn't understand why she hadn't died hours ago. Still, part of him wanted to scream at Dawn for speaking so bluntly; while he'd been keeping watch over Willow, doing all he could (though it wasn't much) to keep her alive, that... THING masquerading as Buffy's sister had just been lying unconscious in a corner. And to add to his grief and confusion, part of him had been just as afraid for her as he was for Willow; after all, he had five years' worth of memories of Dawn growing up, and knowing they were false didn't mean they felt any less real. Until three days ago, he had thought of Dawn as one of his
(children)
charges, and as much as the Watcher in him wanted to look at her objectively as just another mission, the man in him couldn't. He bit back on his angry reply, gently re-dressed Willow's wound and then turned to Dawn. "How are you feeling?"
Dawn was still staring at Willow as if looking right through her, and now she hugged her own knees and rocked gently back and forth. "She's always taken care of me, Giles. My whole life. I was always so mean to her and she always took care of me and I-I was yelling at her and telling her she was going to get us killed and then I ran away and now she's dead and it's all my fault and I couldn't help her and she's dead and now we're all-"
"Dawn... what are you talking about?" Giles put his hands on the teen's shoulders to try and soothe her before she became completely hysterical. "She is not dead. We need to get her to a hospital soon, but if she's made it this long I'm sure she'll be fine." He didn't believe that himself, but he took Dawn's hand and placed her fingertips on Willow's neck. "See? She's alive."
"Not her. Buffy." Dawn looked as if she had just had to explain to him that 2+2=4. "Buffy's dead."
For the longest while Giles just stared at her. "No." He shook his head. "You're lying." He'd seen Dawn tell lies enough times
(no you haven't)
to know that she was telling the truth now, but he refused to believe it. "You're LYING!"
If Dawn felt him grabbing her harder and shaking her, she didn't show it. She just kept staring past him, sobbing and almost giggling with terror. "Big chainsaw. Wrrooooom. Can't get any deader than that. She screamed, Giles, she screamed, it hurt so bad that she screamed and I couldn't help her, I ran..."
If there had been any doubt in his mind that Dawn was telling the truth, he knew now. Maybe he'd known on some level ever since he and Willow heard the scream last night, but... before he realized what he was doing he had slapped Dawn. He wanted to hurt her, to expose her for the lie she was. "Shut up. Shut up. You don't get to... you're not even... you're just..." But when he looked into her shocked eyes he couldn't bring himself to say it. As it turned out, he didn't have time anyway.
"Spare the rod, spoil the child." They both looked up to see Tara's father standing in the doorway, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands and looking like he hadn't slept a wink; hair on end, murderous calm in his bloodshot eyes. "Glad to see you at least know how to discipline your daughter." He pointed to Willow. "She still alive?"
Giles judged the distance to the door; no way he could get to the man before he had time to turn the gun on him. "Yes."
"Good for you. That means you get to live until she's out of the woods, and you better pray hard she makes it. I take no pleasure in killin', there's just some things you gotta do, don't mean you have to like it..." Mr Maclay spoke through gritted teeth, but then his composure suddenly vanished as he pointed to Willow, his face a mask of grief and fury. "But that little WHORE killed my SON! As if it wasn't enough for her to corrupt my daughter... dying's too good for her! As God is my witness, she's going to suffer for a long time before I put her out of her misery and send her to the hell where she belongs!" Calming down somewhat, he turned to Dawn. "As for you, though, young lady... we were going to keep you. Donnie is... was looking for a wife, and he thought you'd make a good one. Of course, now that he's... he's... we don't really have any use for you. BUBBA!"
The doorway darkened as Leatherface entered, a sledgehammer in his hand. His father pointed to Dawn while keeping the shotgun aimed at Willow and Giles. "Kill her."
Seeing Buffy's killer coming towards her, Dawn lost it completely. She scrambled madly backwards on all fours, screaming, pleading and whimpering, unable to form a coherent thought. Leatherface raised his hammer... and then stopped and lowered it again, as if confused.
His father cleared his throat. "Bubba, you know I don't like repeating myself." Leatherface answered in an anxious stream of gibberish that only served to anger Mr Maclay further. "What do you mean 'pretty green glow'? KILL the little bitch!" He walked up to Leatherface and slapped him hard. "I thought I'd beaten that nonsense out of you years ago. As long as you're under my roof you live by my rules, and when I tell you to kill, you kill!"
Leatherface cowered and didn't meet his father's stare, looked at Dawn as if in awe and still refused to go any closer to her. Furious, Mr Maclay slapped him again. "You're useless! Get out of here, go make dinner or something. I'm ashamed to call you my son." As Leatherface slinked out of the basement, his father cocked the shotgun and pointed it at Dawn. "That's family for you, always a disappointment. If you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself."
But he had taken his eyes off Giles. And when the Brit got to his feet, it wasn't as a Watcher trying to protect a mystical Key; Watchers aren't supposed to be soldiers or bodyguards, not supposed to throw themselves in front of guns. Watchers take care of their Slayers, teach them, keep them in the game until they die, and then their job is done.
A father's job, on the other hand, is never done as long as one of his children is alive, and adopted fathers are no different. Giles tackled Maclay head-on and Dawn kept screaming as the gun went off and she was splattered with both men's blood.
Chapter 8: Nobody Messes With My Girl
At some point, Tara's prayers faded and she leaned back against the door, drifting off to tired half-sleep and a dream...
Everyone stopped talking and Xander scooted over on the couch as Buffy came back into Giles' living room. "So, what's the news from LA, Buff?"
The Slayer plopped down beside him, shifting uncomfortably and not meeting anyone’s eyes. "25 to life. She pleaded guilty to everything."
The gang took this in in silence, except Dawn who sat up straight. "25 years? That's it? Faith gets to kill a bunch of people and she's out before she's Mom's age?"
"They said there were, uh, midisomething circumstances." Buffy kept fidgeting with the portable phone. "There was some stuff... about her childhood."
"Oh dear." Giles looked at her with concern. "Did they say-"
"I'll tell you later." Buffy very obviously avoided looking at her little sister, who rolled her eyes and snorted with derision.
Tara wasn't surprised but still cringed inside when Willow mirrored Dawn's reaction. "I'm sorry, but I officially don't care. If you're old enough to kill people, you're old enough to take responsibility for it yourself instead of blaming it on 'Mwaaah, my parents didn't love me'. I say good riddance to her."
Buffy didn’t answer. Tara still was not completely clear all that had happened between the two Slayers — Faith was a very sore spot with Willow — but the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. "Buffy? A-are you OK?"
For a few seconds, Buffy just kept staring at her hands. Then she looked up at her watcher. "Giles, you have to talk to the council. I mean, if something happens to me... there has to be a Slayer, and no matter what Faith did, I don't want them to..."
Giles put his hand on her shoulder. "I'll try. I don't know if I have any pull with them anymore, but I'll try."
"What do you mean ‘if something happens’?" Dawn cut in. "Nothing happens to you, you’re the Slayer."
"No I’m not." Buffy finally looked at her sister. "Dawnie, I haven't been THE Slayer in three years. I'm a... a... parrot box?"
"Paradox." Giles corrected her automatically.
"Right. I did my time and the line passed to Kendra. If I die —"
"You're not going to die!" Dawn's volume knob was turned up to about eight now, and all treble and tremble.
"If I die again, Dawn, we can't be sure that anyone takes my place. The only way there’ll be a Slayer then is either if they let Faith out or if they... and they've tried to kill her before."
"So have you!" The thirteen-year-old, very upset by now, didn’t sound like she thought this was a particularly bad idea. "The heck with Faith, Buffy, you’re the Slayer and you're not going to die, so stop talking about-"
Buffy put her hands over her ears. "GOD, Dawnie, shut UP! You're the only person I know who can whine in frequencies that only dogs can hear!"
Tara awoke knowing it wasn’t a dream. That exact scene had taken place about a week after the scoobies had defeated Adam, and had been one of few bleak spots on an otherwise blissful summer; she and Willow had had their first almost-spat afterwards when Tara had suggested that maybe Willow didn't have to spend the whole day reciting The Evil Deeds Of Faith, Parts I-XXV, and that sometimes there could be more to it than just "my parents didn't love me" — something Willow had refused to even discuss. And Dawn had sulked for days even though no one brought up the possibility of Buffy maybe not living to 106 around her again. Tara hadn't thought about it since, but the dream was vivid — so vivid, in fact, she thought she could still hear Dawn pleading hysterically.
Then she sat up straight from where she'd fallen asleep by the door and realized it wasn't the dream. The wails were coming from inside the house — very faint, separated from her by a couple of thick walls, but loud and high-pitched enough that she could just about recognize them. Dawn was here, she was in trouble, and Tara was locked in here, helpless... BANG. She pounded her fist against the door in frustration. "Gods damn you, OPEN!"
There was a crack of splintering wood as the door flew open so fast that it ripped loose of its hinges and crashed into the opposite side of the hallway. One of the hinges did several surprised turns in the air before falling to the floor.
Tara got to her feet, staring in disbelief at the doorway. How...? She pointed at the fallen hinge. "Levitare." It rose off the carpet, hovering in mid-air until she let it drop again.
The protection spell was lifted.
And with the door gone, Tara could hear Dawn's sobbing cries from the basement clearly and didn't hesitate. She had gotten halfway down the stairs when she heard the noise of the old rusty meatgrinder; her brother was busy in the kitchen, which meant he wouldn't be paying attention to much else. Good. But that still meant she might have to get persuasive with her father and Donnie, and she had never learned much in the way of fighting magic. She needed protection... her eyes fell on something sitting on top of the table in the hallway. Oh yes. That should do.
* * *
In the basement, Dawn slowly managed to get a hold of herself and crept over to the two men lying still on top of each other. The pool of red that had formed around them was seeping slowly into the dirt floor. "Giles?" She grabbed the Englishman by the shoulder and shook him. "Giles, come o-" Then she yelped as Giles' body rolled over on its back, his unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling and blood trickling listlessly from the gaping red maw in his chest. The shotgun blast had more or less obliterated the left half of his chest and even though Dawn managed to look away, the image — bone fragments, flesh, blood around the hole in his undershirt — was burned into her eyes. Whimpering, she started crawling towards Willow, who had remained perfectly still throughout the whole thing, when she heard a wet cough behind her.
"Giles?" She turned around, hoping against hope. No, not Giles. At least part of the shotgun blast had hit the Texan and he was bleeding badly from his side and his left arm, but Mr Maclay was coming to, already fumbling for the gun. Dawn tried to get up, but her legs seemed to have gone on strike and wouldn't obey her.
"You... little... bitch." Maclay panted as he sat halfway up against the wall, cracked the shotgun open and started rifling through his pockets for shells. "You'll pay for that." One of the shells fell out of his hand and Dawn watched it bounce a couple of times and then roll towards her. She stared curiously as it came to a halt against her foot, then slowly reached out and grasped it, holding it up to her eyes. She'd never seen a bullet of any kind before. Could something as toy-looking as this really be dangerous? Could something like this really have killed Giles?
"Yeah. You just hang on to that, if you think it'll do you any good." Maclay managed to load the shotgun. With a grunt of pain he snapped it shut, used it as a cane to raise himself to his knees and started turning it towards Dawn. "If you're the praying sort, now would be-" Then he froze as he felt the blade of the chainsaw against his neck.
"P-p-put the g-gun down, Pa." Tara was standing behind him, all white-knuckled hands and trembling muscles as she held up the heavy chainsaw.
Her father coughed and spat a red-tinged blob on the floor, but sounded as assertive as ever when he spoke. "Don't be silly, Tara. You don't even know how to work that thing."
She put her hand on the clutch, pulled the strap and the well-oiled engine roared to life. All she had to do now was literally lift a finger and the blade would start spinning. "Th-think so? I spent 18 years in this house, P-pa. I pick things up. Now put the gun d-DOWN!"
Maclay swallowed as the blade poked him a little extra in the neck; after all, he was probably one of the world's leading experts on how much damage a chainsaw could do to a person. But he didn't lower the gun. "Tara.. I know you and I know you're not going to do this. I'm your father. For eighteen years your family has taken care of you, supported you, fed you —"
"On human flesh, Pa!"
Her father's voice had grown softer, almost tender. "I did what I had to to take care of you. And then you fell in with the wrong crowd and they've made you forget who you really are, turned you against your own family... but I forgive you, and like the prodigal son, I welcome you back with open arms. I can make it better." He patted the shotgun. "It'll be just like ripping off a band-aid, Tara, it hurts for a second and then we can go back to when everything was good."
There was no telling if the noise that escaped Tara's lips was a sob or a bitter laugh. "When was it ever good, Pa? When you beat Mom, or when you and Donnie beat me? When you tortured Bubba for years for being retarded? When you had him kill all those people?"
"I-I-I'm not perfect, Tara. I know that. I'm just a lowly sinner like everyone else. But you were always the best of us, and now that you've been returned to me I know you don't have it in you. 'And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.' You will put the saw away, Tara, you will let me deal with this, and then we will be alright again."
Tara's hands were shaking, her vision was blurred with tears and the saw seemed to weigh a ton. She almost let it drop. But when she looked at Dawn, crumbled up in fear, and Willow lying there as if dead, she shook her head and held it tighter and there was no stutter when she spoke again. "No. I made a promise last night to take care of my family. And you're no longer a part of that, P... Eugene. So just put the gun down. Please, I-I don't want to do this..."
"I'm sorry, Tara. But I know that once they're gone you'll see things clearer."
The rest was a blur as everything happened at once. Eugene Maclay swung the shotgun towards Willow. Tara may have cried out something, but if she did it was drowned in the roar of the chainsaw as she released the clutch. Her arms shook wildly as the saw met resistance and something warm and sticky sprayed across her dress. There was a thud as something round hit the floor and bounced off into a corner. Then Tara turned off the chainsaw and there was deafening silence for a few seconds before she fell to her knees and threw up violently over her father's twitching corpse.
Chapter 9: The Saw Is Family
Tara wasn't sure how long she'd been kneeling over her father when Dawn joined her. For several minutes the two girls just held each other, shaking. Then Tara remembered.
"Willow...?"
She let go of Dawn and rushed to her girlfriend's side, terrified that she would be too late. Willow showed no reaction when she knelt down beside her, but whatever protection spell Tara had managed to cast yesterday had worked; she was still breathing, if only very slowly. Tara lifted the bandage and gasped at the damage; spell or not, Willow would need help very soon if she was going to make it. She racked her brain for healing spells, coming up with one her mother had used on her when she was little and had been badly beaten by her father. It sounded childish, but it worked. The damage was too severe for her to heal completely — Willow would need surgery — but she could at least kill some of the pain and give her enough strength to hold on for a few more hours.
Tara rubbed her palms together and placed them on the bloody gash in Willow's stomach, trying to ignore the fact that she had oil and dirt all over her hands; there was no time to worry about infections. "Panacea, Panacea, Take away the pain, As it was, so shall it be-a, Help my girl to smile again." She felt the power passing between them, she herself growing weaker as Willow grew stronger, though it felt easier than she'd expected — as if there was some other power helping out. She could have sworn she saw something small glowing in Willow's fist, but when it uncurled there was nothing there. The gash didn't close but the bleeding seemed to stop and some color returned to Willow's cheeks.
Then Tara's heart did a double backflip as Willow's eyes fluttered open. "Hey." Her voice was weak, barely audible, but there was a hint of a smile on her face.
"Hey sweetie." Tara smiled and ran her finger down Willow's cheek, drawing a line of blood and motor oil. "Don't try to move, we're going to get you to a hospital. You need some needlework. I'm going to let you sleep now, OK?"
"OK. Tara?"
"Yeah?"
"Happy birthday."
Tara kissed her forehead. "See you in a few hours." She called down Morpheus' blessing on Willow, who was soon out of it again — but this time sleeping soundly, not leaning on death's door.
And then the doorway darkened. Tara and Dawn both spun around to see Leatherface standing there, staring at the scene before him. Whimpering, he walked up to his father's corpse and bent down to pick up the severed head. He poked it gently, as if to make it talk.
"It's OK, Bub... Robert." Tara spoke to her brother as softly as she could. "You're free now. He can't hurt you anymore."
Leatherface looked up from the head to Tara, absently fingering the hideous mask on his face and saying something unintelligible.
Tara smiled at him. "That's right, you won't have to wear that anymore. You don't have to hide." When he responded by bending over the body of their father and picking up the bloodied chainsaw, looking at it curiously, she felt for him. "Yes, I did that. I had to. Everything's going to be fine now, you're going to get the help you need and..." She trailed off as he gently pulled the strap on the chainsaw, petting the growling machine as if it were a small, deadly animal. Tara raised her voice. "Robert, no! You don't have to... we're free now! He can't -"
They say if you keep a bird in a cage for long enough, it will return to it even if you set it free. And when Leatherface turned away from the corpse of the man who'd decided everything for him his entire life he looked at his sister. His sister who had gone away and left him here, and then come back only to take away everything he had ever known.
With a howl of sorrow, Leatherface revved the saw and charged the three women. Tara was still yelling, desperately pleading with him and between that and the scream of the chainsaw filling her ears, everything else seemed to fade out. So when blood suddenly spurted out his belly and he stopped dead in his tracks, she wasn't sure what was happening; she watched her brother teeter briefly before toppling over onto the saw and uttering a bubbling scream as it dug into his body. Then the saw stalled and Tara turned her head towards Dawn who was gripping the shotgun tight, still pulling the trigger over and over again even though she had already emptied both barrels at him.
Slowly, Tara put her hand out and took the gun away from Dawn. Then she got up on shaky legs and walked over to where Leatherface was lying. A large pool of blood was forming around him and smoke rose from the busted chainsaw, yet somehow he was still alive.
From behind her, she heard Dawn’s tiny, shivering voice. "No, get away from him, he killed Buffy, and—"
"I know." Tara cut her off. "And he's paying for it. But he's my... my brother." She sank down beside him, gently removed the horrific mask and for the first time in years looked at his face. She wished she had any tears left, but she just felt empty.
"Are you going to..." Dawn was surprised to see that under the mask, Leatherface’s own face was... normal. Not good-looking, but not exactly ugly, either. "Are you going to h-heal him?"
But Tara just slowly shook her head. "Some things can't be healed, Dawn. I thought I could reach him, but... If people keep telling you you're a monster, treating you like one, sooner or later you believe them. He never knew anything else. He put on the mask to hide what he really was and he became the monster."
Leatherface's left eye opened and for a second he seemed to try to get up, but the high-pitched groan of pain that escaped his lips made it clear that he wasn't going anywhere. With a last effort he managed to put his hand on Tara's shoulder, and she responded by putting her arms around him. "Shhh, Robert... just be still. It won't hurt much longer." For a few minutes, Dawn watched in awkward silence as the two siblings held each other and Leatherface's breathing grew ever more labored.
And then it stopped.
* * *
Epilogue: two and a half years later
Riley edged the SUV onto the dirt road, hearing the gravel rattle under its wheels. He hadn't been out here since he helped them move, after Joyce's death left them only pain and a fight that was no longer theirs in Sunnydale, and so he had had to ask directions from a neighbor. Fortunately, that hadn't been a problem at all.
"Sawyer farm? Sure, I know it. Just go on ahead about three miles, and there's a li'l dirt road on your right. Follow that for a mile or so and you can't miss it. Say hi to the girls for me."
When he reached the house, he noticed how different it looked. The courtyard was cleared of all the wrecks and junk, the house had a fresh coat of paint and the surrounding fields weren't growing wild anymore. He got out. "Anybody home?"
A woman in a wide-brimmed hat came out of a newly built greenhouse, and when she looked up and smiled he recognized Tara. Except she was different; not just the tan and the work clothes, but something about the way she carried herself, confident, secure — and strong, he noted when they hugged. There were the obligatory "so good to see you" variations that tend to pass between two people who have a history together and like each other yet never really knew each other all that well. He asked about the others.
"Dawn's out working somewhere, but Will is —"
"Hey there, mister!" Willow poked her head out the door with a big grin on her face and came jogging up to him.
Riley hugged her. "Great to see you again, Will." It really was; last time he'd seen her she had still been recovering from intestinal surgery - not to mention losing most of the people she loved - and had seemed merely a ghost of herself; now she had a few more lines around her eyes, but she had put on some weight (it suited her), she was freckled from the sun and looked as full of life as he remembered her from the summer they'd all spent together a long time ago.
They sat down on the porch with a big pitcher of lemonade that Willow brought. "So, what's the big news that got the supersoldier defender of Sunnydale all the way out here?"
Riley knew Willow was kidding, but still felt a pang of guilt at having been such a stranger. It had just been hard, with Buffy gone and with everything going on back in Sunnydale... which of course was what brought him here. He took a deep breath. "It's Faith."
"What about her?" Willow immediately went on the defensive, then saw the look on his face. "Oh. I'm sorry. I mean... oh. You mean she's... isn't she?"
Riley nodded. "There was another apocalypse, some hellgod wannabe tried to open the hellmouth. Faith stopped it and as far as we can tell she closed it for good, she just... didn't make it out again. She did good work these last two years, I think you would have... She never did get along with the troops, though", he smiled, gazing off into the distance. Willow shifted uncomfortably on the couch as if she wanted to say something, but settled for cuddling closer to Tara who put her arm around her and kissed the top of her head. They sat in silence for a while before Riley decided to change the subject. "So how are things here?"
"Oh, we're doing pretty good." Tara took a sip of lemonade. "It's hard work, but the neighbors help out sometimes. I guess they're all happy to be rid of my folks, but of course none of them would ever mention it so it's all pretty much don't-ask-don't-tell. And Dawn's going off to college next fall, at least we hope so..."
"Oh, she'd better," Willow grinned, putting her hand on Tara's and squeezing it warmly. "I could definitely go a few more years without another teenager in the house."
"How is Dawn anyway? I mean, last time I saw her..."
Tara and Willow shared a look, as if deciding who was going to go first. "Well, she's..." Willow started and then hesitated, and Tara continued. "She's had it rough. The first few months... well, you know what she was like. She thought she'd lost everyone. Everything that happened here, and then being the one to find Joyce... it took her a lot of time to learn to live again. But I think this place has been good to her, all the work has helped take her mind off things, and she's really taken to it..."
"Plus, y'know..." Willow sighed sadly. "She's Buffy's little sister, and Summers women — tough as extra tough nails. I'm not saying she's all yay-me-my-life-rocks every single day, but she's a trooper. She's going to be fine."
For a while, they talked about other stuff — farming, mostly — but eventually Willow leaned forward and gave him a mock-stern look. "OK, Riley. We all know there's something you wanna say, and you may as well say it."
"That obvious, huh?" He smiled sheepishly. "OK, well... I guess I just don't see how you can live here, after all that's happened. I mean, you've done great things with this place, but..."
Tara looked out over the field for a long time before answering. "There's nothing wrong with this place, Riley. The evil was what my family did and I've promised to make up for it. There's been so much blood spilt here, all we can do is to try and restore some balance, try and cleanse the earth. We grow responsibly, we don't use pesticide, we don't eat meat..." (Riley blushed a little; he couldn't help it, he was a guy.)
"Also, being on first-name basis with a coupla fertility goddesses doesn't exactly hurt the crops... not that we'd use that for personal gain or anything, of course", Willow quickly added when Tara shot her an amused glance. "Say, big fella, we're going to be starting dinner — you are staying for dinner, aren't you?"
"Wouldn't miss it. Do you need any help?"
"Nah. You just take a walk, get a feel for the place. Tell you what, if you want... I mean, of course they're not actually buried there, but we..." Willow took a deep breath and then pointed. "Over under the big elm. We just needed someplace to... y'know. Remember."
A few minutes later Riley sat down on the bench under the elm, looking at the nine plain crosses planted there. Anya, Xander, Giles, Buffy and, somewhat apart from them, the Maclay family. For a while, he just sat there, thinking back on how good life had been for a short while. Of course, he'd been to the scoobies' real graves back in Sunnydale, but for some reason it seemed right that they should be here too - close to the few people who still remembered and loved them. He was deep in thought when suddenly the relative silence was ripped apart by the howl of a small two-stroke engine. Riley looked up in surprise and thought the sound must be coming from the back of the house. A farmboy himself, he knew what it was: a chainsaw cutting something up. He got up to investigate.
At first he didn't recognize her. His mental image of Dawn was still the lanky young teenager whom he'd first run in to at Buffy's dorm right around the time they started dating, but that was almost four years ago and that girl was long gone. In her place was a tall, slim but well-muscled young woman in a work shirt and dungarees, her hair hanging in her face as she worked. She was cutting up firewood with a shiny new chainsaw, a small but powerful tool that seemed to cut through even the toughest branches with no trouble at all. Riley watched her admiringly; she was pretty handy with that thing, he wasn't sure he would have gotten through the pile of wood half as fast as she did.
When she turned the saw off, he cleared his throat. She spun around, and for a second something about the expression on her face scared him. Before he could quite put his finger on it, though, she put on a big smile that seemed almost perfectly normal.
THE END...?
Well... read on...
Sick, Twisted And Evil Alternate Ending: Off With Her Head
(Note the "alternate". Read the previous chapter before you read this.)
Author's note: I posted the last chapter to my usual hunting grounds and got feedback saying "cute ending, but where's the gore?" Words like "chicken" and "pussy" were used — in jocular fashion, but still: irksome. So I said to myself, "Self", I said, "if they want gore, fine, give'em gore." I opened a bottle of whisky, put on a Black Sabbath record and typed until 4AM, making sure to make it as dark, repulsive and disturbing as I possibly could and then some. It scares me a little that this stuff came out of my head. I'm a pretty nice guy, really. But here it is.
Last warning: If you thought the previous chapters were too nasty, they are Disney candyfloss and adorable little puppies eating ice cream in the summer sun compared to this one. I'm going to The Special Hell for this chapter, and anyone who reads it will be right there with me getting poked in the ass by the same pitchfork, burning in the same pot full of molten lava, listening to the same Coldplay records. If that's not your thing, STOP READING. NOW.
Don't say I didn't warn you. Now, let's pick up where we started the last chapter, with Tara healing Willow.
* * *
...Tara kissed her forehead. "See you in a few hours." She called down Morpheus' blessing on Willow, who was soon out of it again — but this time sleeping soundly, not leaning on death's door.
And then the doorway darkened. Tara and Dawn both spun around to see Leatherface standing there, staring at the scene before him. Whimpering, he walked up to his father's corpse and bent down to pick up the severed head. He poked it gently, as if to make it talk.
"It's OK, Robert." Tara spoke as softly as she could. "You're free now. He can't hurt you anymore."
Leatherface looked up from the head to Tara, absently grabbing at his face and saying something unintelligible.
Tara smiled at him. "That's right, you won't have to wear that anymore. You don't have to hide." When he responded by bending over the body of their father and picking up the bloodied chainsaw, looking at it curiously, she felt for him. "Yes, I did that. I had to. Everything's going to be fine now, you're going to get the help you need and..." He collapsed in wretched sobs over his father. She got up to join him but he gave her a violent shove, sending her tumbling across the room. Then he he lifted the body with one arm, grabbed the chainsaw in the other, and after one final hurt look at his sister, climbed back up the steps and slammed the door behind him. Dawn ran after him, but the door was locked and all she could do was to pound her fists against it.
"HEEEEEEEEELP! SOMEBODYYY! HEEEELP!"
Tara slowly sat up, starting to realize what had happened. "Dawnie, please don't... there's no one within miles and even if there was, this place is soundproof. Pa used to lock Robert in here when he was a kid. He'd scream for days, but you could stand right outside the door and barely hear it. Once you're locked in here..." her voice shivered, "you don't get out until he lets you out."
"Well can't you... you know... magic it open?"
Tara looked at the door, then looked at Willow, and then shook her head. "I can't... right now the magicks are all that's keeping her alive. If I use some of that to try and break down the door, she'll..."
"What about the gun? On TV they always —"
"No. It's a shotgun, not a rifle. The door's too thick, and there's a padlock on the outside."
Dawn swallowed hard, her lip trembling. Then she turned back to the door and beat her fists bloody against it, clawing her nails out, screaming for help until her voice was down to a whisper. When she couldn't scream anymore, she stumbled down to where Tara was sitting with Willow and lay down beside them, trying not to panic. "Riley knows we're here. Riley knows. He'll..."
"I-I'm sure he will, Dawn. We just have to wait." They knew they were both thinking the same things; if he's OK, if he finds the house, if Leatherface doesn't find him first...
* * *
Day 2
"Tara? I'm hungry."
Tara sat with Willow's head in her lap, softly stroking her hair. It was taking all her power just to keep Willow here. "I know, sweetie. I am too." They had gone through the entire basement searching for tools that could help them get out, and when that failed, for anything edible. There was a tap with fresh water in a corner, but otherwise nothing useful; boxes containing some of Tara's mother's clothes — at least they could make fresh bandages for Willow — a few books, various junk, and that was it.
It was hot in here, but stripping down to their underwear and drinking a lot of water helped some. It didn't help Giles, though; his body had been lying in this temperature for two days now and was becoming very ripe. The stench and constant buzzing of flies was almost deafening, even after they gathered the nerve to dump an entire box of clothes over him and shove him into the furthest corner.
Dawn held up one of the books they had found. "Is this any good? I don't think I..." She frowned. "I can't remember if I've read it."
Tara looked at it and smiled. "'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland'. My mother used to read it to me all the time." She took the book, and they both huddled around Willow as Tara read until the sun went down.
"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge..."*
* * *
Day 3
"Tara! I got it!" Dawn had managed to use the barrel of the shotgun to punch out the small ventilation opening near the ceiling and now a thin shaft of sunlight lit up the dusky basement. Dawn put her head up to the opening and looked out; it was a beautiful summer's day, and she could see a butterfly fluttering across the lawn just over a foot away from her. But the hole was so small. She could barely force her arm through it, scraping it bloody on the sharp remains of the metal grid that had blocked it to keep rats and rain out. When she pulled her hand back in she had a fistful of grass. She stared at it for a few seconds — green, glistening, fresh — before stuffing it in her mouth and chewing.
"No, Dawn!" Tara tried to stop her, but she refused to open her mouth. "You can't eat that. It won't do any good, you can't digest it."
"I know." Dawn swallowed. "But it tastes like food." She got up again and got a second fist of grass, which she offered to Tara. She hesitated, but the rumbling in her stomach was loud enough to shout down her brain. She took it and ate.
For both of them, it came out both ends a few hours later. Green, sickly. They tried again.
* * *
Day 4
Willow was thrashing in her sleep, groaning, her cheeks burning up with fever. Tara was doing her best to keep her still as she dabbed at her face with a wet rag, but it was obvious that her girlfriend was in a lot of pain.
Dawn couldn't understand how she could let this go on. "I think she's waking up. Shouldn't you be healing her again?"
Tara had known this moment would come, and shook her head slowly. "I... I've been trying for hours, Dawnie. I have n-n-nothing left, I'm tapped out."
She carefully lifted the bandage. At first the spell had kept the infection in check, but the wound wasn't healing — on the contrary, it was opening up again, and for the first time in two days the bandage was again soaked wet with Willow's blood.
Dawn tried to get up to sit by Willow's side, but she was too light-headed and settled for crawling over on all fours. "But there's gotta be something... I mean, can't you see that she's hurting?"
"She's dying, Dawn." Tara's voice was surprisingly forceful considering how weak she felt... or maybe it was just that they'd gotten so used to whispering that anything spoken at normal level sounded like a jet plane taking off. "Unless she gets to a doctor immediately, she's going to keep getting worse and she's going to die. It'll take hours and it will hurt like nothing I can imagine. A...and since I can't even keep her asleep anymore, sh-she's going to be awake the whole time..."
Dawn looked at her and then shakily pulled herself up to the ventilation shaft. Somewhere far off, she thought she could hear a small engine revving. "HEEEEEEEELP! RIIIIILEEEY!" Her voice probably didn't even carry to the end of the lawn, but it was loud enough to wake up Willow.
The redhead was even paler than usual, her eyes at half mast and sweat pearling on her face. She tried to speak; at first nothing came out, and the second time around only the last part of the sentence made it. "...ospital?"
"Not yet." Tara's hand trembled as she gently carressed her cheek. "Something came up."
"I think..." Willow grimaced in pain. "Not to be a... party-pooper or anything, but... bu..." Tara almost allowed herself to hope that Willow was going to pass out. She almost did, but then she cried out in agony and was conscious again. "...I should probably get there soonish. Feeling real f-funky here."
"I know. It'll be better soon, I promise. Will?"
"Y-yeah?"
"You know I love you, right?"
"Of c-"
"You know I'd give my life for you? You know I'd do anything to make you stop hurting?"
Willow nodded. "Me too."
"I know. And I have something here that will take the pain away. But I... I can only do it one time, so you just let me know when it gets real bad and I'll make it right for you. OK, sweetie?"
It was anybody's guess whether Willow understood what Tara was getting at, but she nodded weakly. Tara kissed her and then held her, whispering private things in her ear as she waited. It took about half an hour; then Willow squeezed her hand as the pain grew unbearable. "Tara... please..."
Their eyes met. "OK. Close your eyes and open your mouth." Willow complied. "I love you." Tara put the shotgun to Willow's mouth and pulled the trigger. The blast left both Tara and Dawn deaf for several minutes, and Willow dead for a whole lot longer than that as the top half of her head dissolved into a rainbow-like fountain of pinkish brains, copper curls and crimson blood stretching from her upper jaw to the wall two feet away. Dawn remained sitting at Willow's feet unable to look away, while Tara stumbled into a corner where she huddled, shaking, until night fell and everything was dark.
* * *
Day 5
Dawn was too weak to even stand up and reach the ventilation shaft. Not that it mattered; they had picked every square inch they could reach free of grass, and there was no food anywhere. She had ripped out a tooth trying to bite a chunk out of her shoe, and it was hurting bad. She was even almost too tired to cry. Almost. At some point she thought that Buffy was sitting next to her, stroking her hair like she always had when something was wrong... but when she looked up it was Tara.
"How are you feeling?"
"I wanna go home." Dawn sniveled. "I'm so hungry and I'm tired and I just wanna go home. Why can't we just go home... why isn't there any food..."
"There is." Tara's fists were clenched almost as tightly as her jaw as she seemed to make a decision. "We have fresh meat."
Dawn looked at her and frowned before she realized what she was talking about. "Are you INSANE?!"
"Dawn, I know it's..."
"It's WILLOW!"
"No. It's not her." Tara rocked her, sobbing herself now. "It's not her. She's gone."
"Where did she... I mean, shouldn't we have given her last rites or something?"
"I don't know. I have no idea, Dawn, we never talked about that... Jewish stuff... but I have to believe she's someplace good. She was the best... the best person I ever... and she would want us to-"
"How can you SAY that?"
"Do you wanna die?" Tara tried to get to her feet, but stumbled and fell on top of Dawn. It took them a lot of effort to just disentangle, each limb seemed to weigh a ton. "I'm done, Dawnie. This is it. No one's coming for us, and I spent too much energy trying to save..." She couldn't even say it. "I need to eat something or I'll die. Soon. She died trying to save me, and Buffy died trying to save you. What the hell was the point if we're just going to give up? W-we have to be strong, Dawnie..."
"What about..." Dawn hated herself for having to choose. "What about Giles?"
"He's spoiled. You can smell it. If we eat him, we'll just get sick."
"This IS sick!"
"I know." Tara hugged her. "But it's our only chance."
It took them a few minutes to make their way over to Willow's body. Tara had draped an old shirt over her girlfriend's ruined head.
"How do we..." Dawn swallowed. "How... we don't have a n-knife or anything."
"We'll have to use our teeth." Tara removed the stiff and dry bandage around Willow's stomach. "W-we'll start around the wound and w-w-work our way..."
Over the last two days, hunger - like the stench of death - had become something so mundane that they'd almost forgotten it. Now they remembered. Thousands of years of civilization and millions of years of evolution took a back seat as something older took over. Survive. Eat. Gorge. The roar of hunger in her stomach made Dawn forget the pain in her jaw. For her eleventh (or was it twelfth? She wasn't sure) birthday her mother had served veal. It had been rare, with a delicious red sauce and yams, and incredibly tender. The best meat she'd ever had.
She thought about that as she chewed. And bit. And tore. And chewed. And bit. And tore. And chewed.
* * *
Day 6
Wake up.
Try not to throw up.
Eat.
Try not to throw up.
Think.
"Tara?"
They hadn't spoken to each other since yesterday. Tara seemed to be retreating into herself, moving only to get a piece of meat and then curling up in a corner with her arms around her head. Dawn, on the other hand, felt stronger; she'd been able to keep most of what she ate yesterday and this morning, and as long as she didn't think about it or look at Willow's...
(it's not her, she's gone)
...Its body she found she could actually both think and move better than yesterday. And she remembered that there was something Tara had to do.
"Tara? Shouldn't we be trying the door?" Ignoring her sobs, Dawn pulled the apathetic Tara halfway across the floor before Tara found her feet and began to walk on her own. They reached the door together and Dawn did her best to support the older girl as she let her hands roam over the door, settling on the lock.
Tara took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing. She had eaten, she had slept, she had recharged. It should be enough. Then she pushed with everything she had. "Aperi!" The lock clicked open, the padlock broke and the door swung open all of two inches before stopping dead against something. She peeked through the crack, then exhaled violently, stumbled back to her corner and began laughing hysterically.
Leatherface had made sure they wouldn't get out. A heavy old wooden dresser - roughly the size of a Coke machine - was pulled in front of the door, blocking it as effectively as you'd please.
* * *
Day 7
Dawn looked at It, her mind's artillery effectively shooting down any thoughts that tried to use the W word. It was now dressed only in a pink short-sleeved blouse pulled up to expose the huge gap in Its stomach. The legs had had the most meat and they'd worked some pretty good chunks out of them. But something was new; when Dawn had gone to sleep yesterday It had still been wearing panties, but Tara had obviously fed during the night. The area between Its legs was a gaping red hole, and Dawn again had to fight the gag reflex; she wasn't sure if it was because of the image of Tara lying between Its legs eating or her own immediate reaction - Damn, why didn't I think of that, it must have been a lot easier to chew... She looked at Tara who was weeping in her sleep, blood drying on her dirty face, only the area under her eyes kept clean by a constant flow of salt water.
Dawn turned back to It with dismay. The exposed skin was turning gray, and when she tried to bite a chunk out of Its leg it not only tasted bad but also seemed a lot tougher than it had been yesterday. The food was spoiling; she'd better eat as much as possible today, by tomorrow it would probably be too late. An idea struck her and she unbuttoned the blouse
(Pink... Willow always liked pink...)
carefully, making sure she didn't rip out any buttons even though her hands shook. She ran her hands over Its exposed breasts; they seemed whiter, more supple than the rest of her, as if the blouse had kept that part of her fresher than the rest. She grabbed the left breast with both hands and bent down to take a bite.
"NO! M-m-mine!"
Suddenly Tara was on her, dragging her away, and for a few seconds they struggled, fighting like dogs over a bone, kicking, scratching, biting, Dawn pulling at Tara's hair. Eventually the larger woman got the upper hand and pinned Dawn down. They stared at each other, teeth bared, until the feral expression on Tara's face melted away into one of unimaginable grief. "Dawnie, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... but I can't let you... not there. There's enough for both of us, but... not there. That's mine. Sh-she's..." She grabbed one of Its stiff arms and angled it up towards Dawn. "H-here, the palm is the best bit, I-I've been saving them for you..."
And they ate.
* * *
Day 8
The heat and stench weren't as bad anymore. They were used to it, like rats living at the city dump don't complain when someone drops off a truckload of bad shrimp. And for now, the hunger was gone. Despite the foul taste, they had been able to keep what they ate yesterday. But they also knew it was the last meal for a while; they had tried to eat a little more today, but It tasted awful and only Tara had been able to keep anything down. And so they sat, waiting.
As the light started to dim, Dawn found the book they'd been reading from, but it had been lying right by Willow's head and was ruined, soaked through with dried blood so you couldn't even turn the pages.
"Tara?" No answer. "How does it end?"
Dawn had almost forgot that she asked when Tara finally responded. "She wakes up. It was all a dream." There was a pause, and then Tara recited from memory. "She pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days."*
Dawn nodded. That was a happy ending. "Tara? Is this a dream?"
There was no answer.
* * *
Day... 12, possibly 13
Dawn drank some more water. The hunger was gnawing in her stomach as she crept back to her corner. It was the most curious feeling; for the last... however long it had been since Tara had stopped talking, she had been trying to remember what happened before all this. For some reason her memories seemed to get foggier all the time; the last 3-4 months were pretty clear, but anything before that was weird. She could remember her mother, and Buffy, and she knew there had been stuff before this summer but... she just couldn't remember any of it.
She wondered if Tara had the same problem. She never answered anymore. Occasionally she'd call out Willow's name in her sleep, but mostly she just sat in her corner. Lately she'd taken to staring at Dawn. Dawn knew because she stared back.
She was so hungry.
* * *
Day ?
The struggle was not as brief as it would have been if either of them had been strong enough to stand or kick, but not very long either. There was a weak groan as teeth sank into emaciated flesh and one pair of hands was forced to let go of the shotgun. There was a blast. There was a scream of pain, followed by a sickening crack as the shotgun was brought down like a billy club on the wounded girl's head. There were sobs.
And then there was chewing.
* * *
...night... not sure... many many
Hungry.
The pain when she bit into her own hand was intense, but not as bad as that in her stomach, and it kept her from passing out. There was a lot of blood, but it tasted so good. She lapped it up and kept gnawing until the first finger came off. Not much meat on it, but every little bit helps.
And after all, she was right-handed. Lots of people get by with one arm.
Hungry.
Eat.
Survive.
* * *
* Excerpts from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" are written by Lewis Carroll and are in the public domain.
Author's note: There you go. Don't EVER tell me my stories aren't gory enough. Please. I like being able to sleep at night.
If this were a movie I'd end it by blasting "Chainsaw" by The Ramones, so go put that on now.
Texas chain saw massacre
They took my baby away from me
But she'll never get out of there
She'll never get out of there...
Chapter 7: Protection
"But if you hurt what's mine
I'll sure as hell retaliate"
- Massive Attack
After Willow ran off Tara sank to the floor, leaned her back against the doorframe and closed her eyes. She heard her girlfriend's footsteps disappear down the hall and fade away, and then she was once again completely alone.
The walls were thick in this house. For most of her childhood, that had been a source of comfort, something that made it possible to sleep; few of the screams from downstairs got in, and none of the sobs from in here got out. Now it felt like a curse — anything could be happening to Willow just downstairs and she wouldn't hear it, wouldn't know, wouldn't be able to help in any way. She couldn't handle that. She had to do something.
Crossing her legs and straightening her back, Tara tried to focus. She'd read lots of different protection spells over the years; some which were supposed to work, others which had not worked for centuries... she was too upset to recall any of them word for word, but of course magic didn't work in this house anyway as long as her mother's curse was still upon it, and as far as Tara knew that hadn't changed.
But maybe prayers did.
And so she improvised, mixing in bits and pieces of protection spells while calling on any reasonably benevolent Goddess she could think of — Isis, Artemis, Freya, Demeter, Minerva, Lakshmi... praying, pleading, begging, demanding, promising to do anything; to sacrifice, to give back to the Earth, even to stay here and take care of her family forever... just as long as Willow was safe from harm tonight.
Dawn awoke from unconsciousness slowly, as if drifting up from deep underwater. Even after she was fully awake, it was a long time before her shell-shocked brain remembered how to move her muscles. She looked at her surroundings; a dark basement, reeking of things she didn't want to think about, all sorts of junk strewn around... she wasn't tied up, but the door looked pretty tough. And of course, in one corner, there was Giles hunched over Willow's body. Dawn watched them for several minutes before she spoke. "Is she alive?"
Giles had checked Willow’s pulse at least a dozen times in the first hour after they threw her in with him and Dawn, but in the last two hours he hadn’t dared to. Now he steeled himself and once again put his fingers on her neck. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. "She’s fine." That was a lie, of course; apart from the very faint pulse, the hardly noticeable breath she'd draw now and then, and the steel grip she still held on a small bloodied object in her hand, Willow lay perfectly still and might as well be...
"She doesn’t look fine. She looks dead." Dawn's voice was oddly flat when she scooted over to Willow’s side. Before Giles could stop her, she lifted the blood-soaked shirt he had wrapped around the deathly pale redhead's belly. "Yup. Dead. No way she'll survive that."
Giles couldn't really disagree; after all, he could see right into Willow's innards, she had lost a huge amount of blood and he supposed she was slipping into coma territory; he honestly couldn't understand why she hadn't died hours ago. Still, part of him wanted to scream at Dawn for speaking so bluntly; while he'd been keeping watch over Willow, doing all he could (though it wasn't much) to keep her alive, that... THING masquerading as Buffy's sister had just been lying unconscious in a corner. And to add to his grief and confusion, part of him had been just as afraid for her as he was for Willow; after all, he had five years' worth of memories of Dawn growing up, and knowing they were false didn't mean they felt any less real. Until three days ago, he had thought of Dawn as one of his
(children)
charges, and as much as the Watcher in him wanted to look at her objectively as just another mission, the man in him couldn't. He bit back on his angry reply, gently re-dressed Willow's wound and then turned to Dawn. "How are you feeling?"
Dawn was still staring at Willow as if looking right through her, and now she hugged her own knees and rocked gently back and forth. "She's always taken care of me, Giles. My whole life. I was always so mean to her and she always took care of me and I-I was yelling at her and telling her she was going to get us killed and then I ran away and now she's dead and it's all my fault and I couldn't help her and she's dead and now we're all-"
"Dawn... what are you talking about?" Giles put his hands on the teen's shoulders to try and soothe her before she became completely hysterical. "She is not dead. We need to get her to a hospital soon, but if she's made it this long I'm sure she'll be fine." He didn't believe that himself, but he took Dawn's hand and placed her fingertips on Willow's neck. "See? She's alive."
"Not her. Buffy." Dawn looked as if she had just had to explain to him that 2+2=4. "Buffy's dead."
For the longest while Giles just stared at her. "No." He shook his head. "You're lying." He'd seen Dawn tell lies enough times
(no you haven't)
to know that she was telling the truth now, but he refused to believe it. "You're LYING!"
If Dawn felt him grabbing her harder and shaking her, she didn't show it. She just kept staring past him, sobbing and almost giggling with terror. "Big chainsaw. Wrrooooom. Can't get any deader than that. She screamed, Giles, she screamed, it hurt so bad that she screamed and I couldn't help her, I ran..."
If there had been any doubt in his mind that Dawn was telling the truth, he knew now. Maybe he'd known on some level ever since he and Willow heard the scream last night, but... before he realized what he was doing he had slapped Dawn. He wanted to hurt her, to expose her for the lie she was. "Shut up. Shut up. You don't get to... you're not even... you're just..." But when he looked into her shocked eyes he couldn't bring himself to say it. As it turned out, he didn't have time anyway.
"Spare the rod, spoil the child." They both looked up to see Tara's father standing in the doorway, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands and looking like he hadn't slept a wink; hair on end, murderous calm in his bloodshot eyes. "Glad to see you at least know how to discipline your daughter." He pointed to Willow. "She still alive?"
Giles judged the distance to the door; no way he could get to the man before he had time to turn the gun on him. "Yes."
"Good for you. That means you get to live until she's out of the woods, and you better pray hard she makes it. I take no pleasure in killin', there's just some things you gotta do, don't mean you have to like it..." Mr Maclay spoke through gritted teeth, but then his composure suddenly vanished as he pointed to Willow, his face a mask of grief and fury. "But that little WHORE killed my SON! As if it wasn't enough for her to corrupt my daughter... dying's too good for her! As God is my witness, she's going to suffer for a long time before I put her out of her misery and send her to the hell where she belongs!" Calming down somewhat, he turned to Dawn. "As for you, though, young lady... we were going to keep you. Donnie is... was looking for a wife, and he thought you'd make a good one. Of course, now that he's... he's... we don't really have any use for you. BUBBA!"
The doorway darkened as Leatherface entered, a sledgehammer in his hand. His father pointed to Dawn while keeping the shotgun aimed at Willow and Giles. "Kill her."
Seeing Buffy's killer coming towards her, Dawn lost it completely. She scrambled madly backwards on all fours, screaming, pleading and whimpering, unable to form a coherent thought. Leatherface raised his hammer... and then stopped and lowered it again, as if confused.
His father cleared his throat. "Bubba, you know I don't like repeating myself." Leatherface answered in an anxious stream of gibberish that only served to anger Mr Maclay further. "What do you mean 'pretty green glow'? KILL the little bitch!" He walked up to Leatherface and slapped him hard. "I thought I'd beaten that nonsense out of you years ago. As long as you're under my roof you live by my rules, and when I tell you to kill, you kill!"
Leatherface cowered and didn't meet his father's stare, looked at Dawn as if in awe and still refused to go any closer to her. Furious, Mr Maclay slapped him again. "You're useless! Get out of here, go make dinner or something. I'm ashamed to call you my son." As Leatherface slinked out of the basement, his father cocked the shotgun and pointed it at Dawn. "That's family for you, always a disappointment. If you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself."
But he had taken his eyes off Giles. And when the Brit got to his feet, it wasn't as a Watcher trying to protect a mystical Key; Watchers aren't supposed to be soldiers or bodyguards, not supposed to throw themselves in front of guns. Watchers take care of their Slayers, teach them, keep them in the game until they die, and then their job is done.
A father's job, on the other hand, is never done as long as one of his children is alive, and adopted fathers are no different. Giles tackled Maclay head-on and Dawn kept screaming as the gun went off and she was splattered with both men's blood.
Chapter 8: Nobody Messes With My Girl
At some point, Tara's prayers faded and she leaned back against the door, drifting off to tired half-sleep and a dream...
Everyone stopped talking and Xander scooted over on the couch as Buffy came back into Giles' living room. "So, what's the news from LA, Buff?"
The Slayer plopped down beside him, shifting uncomfortably and not meeting anyone’s eyes. "25 to life. She pleaded guilty to everything."
The gang took this in in silence, except Dawn who sat up straight. "25 years? That's it? Faith gets to kill a bunch of people and she's out before she's Mom's age?"
"They said there were, uh, midisomething circumstances." Buffy kept fidgeting with the portable phone. "There was some stuff... about her childhood."
"Oh dear." Giles looked at her with concern. "Did they say-"
"I'll tell you later." Buffy very obviously avoided looking at her little sister, who rolled her eyes and snorted with derision.
Tara wasn't surprised but still cringed inside when Willow mirrored Dawn's reaction. "I'm sorry, but I officially don't care. If you're old enough to kill people, you're old enough to take responsibility for it yourself instead of blaming it on 'Mwaaah, my parents didn't love me'. I say good riddance to her."
Buffy didn’t answer. Tara still was not completely clear all that had happened between the two Slayers — Faith was a very sore spot with Willow — but the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. "Buffy? A-are you OK?"
For a few seconds, Buffy just kept staring at her hands. Then she looked up at her watcher. "Giles, you have to talk to the council. I mean, if something happens to me... there has to be a Slayer, and no matter what Faith did, I don't want them to..."
Giles put his hand on her shoulder. "I'll try. I don't know if I have any pull with them anymore, but I'll try."
"What do you mean ‘if something happens’?" Dawn cut in. "Nothing happens to you, you’re the Slayer."
"No I’m not." Buffy finally looked at her sister. "Dawnie, I haven't been THE Slayer in three years. I'm a... a... parrot box?"
"Paradox." Giles corrected her automatically.
"Right. I did my time and the line passed to Kendra. If I die —"
"You're not going to die!" Dawn's volume knob was turned up to about eight now, and all treble and tremble.
"If I die again, Dawn, we can't be sure that anyone takes my place. The only way there’ll be a Slayer then is either if they let Faith out or if they... and they've tried to kill her before."
"So have you!" The thirteen-year-old, very upset by now, didn’t sound like she thought this was a particularly bad idea. "The heck with Faith, Buffy, you’re the Slayer and you're not going to die, so stop talking about-"
Buffy put her hands over her ears. "GOD, Dawnie, shut UP! You're the only person I know who can whine in frequencies that only dogs can hear!"
Tara awoke knowing it wasn’t a dream. That exact scene had taken place about a week after the scoobies had defeated Adam, and had been one of few bleak spots on an otherwise blissful summer; she and Willow had had their first almost-spat afterwards when Tara had suggested that maybe Willow didn't have to spend the whole day reciting The Evil Deeds Of Faith, Parts I-XXV, and that sometimes there could be more to it than just "my parents didn't love me" — something Willow had refused to even discuss. And Dawn had sulked for days even though no one brought up the possibility of Buffy maybe not living to 106 around her again. Tara hadn't thought about it since, but the dream was vivid — so vivid, in fact, she thought she could still hear Dawn pleading hysterically.
Then she sat up straight from where she'd fallen asleep by the door and realized it wasn't the dream. The wails were coming from inside the house — very faint, separated from her by a couple of thick walls, but loud and high-pitched enough that she could just about recognize them. Dawn was here, she was in trouble, and Tara was locked in here, helpless... BANG. She pounded her fist against the door in frustration. "Gods damn you, OPEN!"
There was a crack of splintering wood as the door flew open so fast that it ripped loose of its hinges and crashed into the opposite side of the hallway. One of the hinges did several surprised turns in the air before falling to the floor.
Tara got to her feet, staring in disbelief at the doorway. How...? She pointed at the fallen hinge. "Levitare." It rose off the carpet, hovering in mid-air until she let it drop again.
The protection spell was lifted.
And with the door gone, Tara could hear Dawn's sobbing cries from the basement clearly and didn't hesitate. She had gotten halfway down the stairs when she heard the noise of the old rusty meatgrinder; her brother was busy in the kitchen, which meant he wouldn't be paying attention to much else. Good. But that still meant she might have to get persuasive with her father and Donnie, and she had never learned much in the way of fighting magic. She needed protection... her eyes fell on something sitting on top of the table in the hallway. Oh yes. That should do.
In the basement, Dawn slowly managed to get a hold of herself and crept over to the two men lying still on top of each other. The pool of red that had formed around them was seeping slowly into the dirt floor. "Giles?" She grabbed the Englishman by the shoulder and shook him. "Giles, come o-" Then she yelped as Giles' body rolled over on its back, his unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling and blood trickling listlessly from the gaping red maw in his chest. The shotgun blast had more or less obliterated the left half of his chest and even though Dawn managed to look away, the image — bone fragments, flesh, blood around the hole in his undershirt — was burned into her eyes. Whimpering, she started crawling towards Willow, who had remained perfectly still throughout the whole thing, when she heard a wet cough behind her.
"Giles?" She turned around, hoping against hope. No, not Giles. At least part of the shotgun blast had hit the Texan and he was bleeding badly from his side and his left arm, but Mr Maclay was coming to, already fumbling for the gun. Dawn tried to get up, but her legs seemed to have gone on strike and wouldn't obey her.
"You... little... bitch." Maclay panted as he sat halfway up against the wall, cracked the shotgun open and started rifling through his pockets for shells. "You'll pay for that." One of the shells fell out of his hand and Dawn watched it bounce a couple of times and then roll towards her. She stared curiously as it came to a halt against her foot, then slowly reached out and grasped it, holding it up to her eyes. She'd never seen a bullet of any kind before. Could something as toy-looking as this really be dangerous? Could something like this really have killed Giles?
"Yeah. You just hang on to that, if you think it'll do you any good." Maclay managed to load the shotgun. With a grunt of pain he snapped it shut, used it as a cane to raise himself to his knees and started turning it towards Dawn. "If you're the praying sort, now would be-" Then he froze as he felt the blade of the chainsaw against his neck.
"P-p-put the g-gun down, Pa." Tara was standing behind him, all white-knuckled hands and trembling muscles as she held up the heavy chainsaw.
Her father coughed and spat a red-tinged blob on the floor, but sounded as assertive as ever when he spoke. "Don't be silly, Tara. You don't even know how to work that thing."
She put her hand on the clutch, pulled the strap and the well-oiled engine roared to life. All she had to do now was literally lift a finger and the blade would start spinning. "Th-think so? I spent 18 years in this house, P-pa. I pick things up. Now put the gun d-DOWN!"
Maclay swallowed as the blade poked him a little extra in the neck; after all, he was probably one of the world's leading experts on how much damage a chainsaw could do to a person. But he didn't lower the gun. "Tara.. I know you and I know you're not going to do this. I'm your father. For eighteen years your family has taken care of you, supported you, fed you —"
"On human flesh, Pa!"
Her father's voice had grown softer, almost tender. "I did what I had to to take care of you. And then you fell in with the wrong crowd and they've made you forget who you really are, turned you against your own family... but I forgive you, and like the prodigal son, I welcome you back with open arms. I can make it better." He patted the shotgun. "It'll be just like ripping off a band-aid, Tara, it hurts for a second and then we can go back to when everything was good."
There was no telling if the noise that escaped Tara's lips was a sob or a bitter laugh. "When was it ever good, Pa? When you beat Mom, or when you and Donnie beat me? When you tortured Bubba for years for being retarded? When you had him kill all those people?"
"I-I-I'm not perfect, Tara. I know that. I'm just a lowly sinner like everyone else. But you were always the best of us, and now that you've been returned to me I know you don't have it in you. 'And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.' You will put the saw away, Tara, you will let me deal with this, and then we will be alright again."
Tara's hands were shaking, her vision was blurred with tears and the saw seemed to weigh a ton. She almost let it drop. But when she looked at Dawn, crumbled up in fear, and Willow lying there as if dead, she shook her head and held it tighter and there was no stutter when she spoke again. "No. I made a promise last night to take care of my family. And you're no longer a part of that, P... Eugene. So just put the gun down. Please, I-I don't want to do this..."
"I'm sorry, Tara. But I know that once they're gone you'll see things clearer."
The rest was a blur as everything happened at once. Eugene Maclay swung the shotgun towards Willow. Tara may have cried out something, but if she did it was drowned in the roar of the chainsaw as she released the clutch. Her arms shook wildly as the saw met resistance and something warm and sticky sprayed across her dress. There was a thud as something round hit the floor and bounced off into a corner. Then Tara turned off the chainsaw and there was deafening silence for a few seconds before she fell to her knees and threw up violently over her father's twitching corpse.
Chapter 9: The Saw Is Family
Tara wasn't sure how long she'd been kneeling over her father when Dawn joined her. For several minutes the two girls just held each other, shaking. Then Tara remembered.
"Willow...?"
She let go of Dawn and rushed to her girlfriend's side, terrified that she would be too late. Willow showed no reaction when she knelt down beside her, but whatever protection spell Tara had managed to cast yesterday had worked; she was still breathing, if only very slowly. Tara lifted the bandage and gasped at the damage; spell or not, Willow would need help very soon if she was going to make it. She racked her brain for healing spells, coming up with one her mother had used on her when she was little and had been badly beaten by her father. It sounded childish, but it worked. The damage was too severe for her to heal completely — Willow would need surgery — but she could at least kill some of the pain and give her enough strength to hold on for a few more hours.
Tara rubbed her palms together and placed them on the bloody gash in Willow's stomach, trying to ignore the fact that she had oil and dirt all over her hands; there was no time to worry about infections. "Panacea, Panacea, Take away the pain, As it was, so shall it be-a, Help my girl to smile again." She felt the power passing between them, she herself growing weaker as Willow grew stronger, though it felt easier than she'd expected — as if there was some other power helping out. She could have sworn she saw something small glowing in Willow's fist, but when it uncurled there was nothing there. The gash didn't close but the bleeding seemed to stop and some color returned to Willow's cheeks.
Then Tara's heart did a double backflip as Willow's eyes fluttered open. "Hey." Her voice was weak, barely audible, but there was a hint of a smile on her face.
"Hey sweetie." Tara smiled and ran her finger down Willow's cheek, drawing a line of blood and motor oil. "Don't try to move, we're going to get you to a hospital. You need some needlework. I'm going to let you sleep now, OK?"
"OK. Tara?"
"Yeah?"
"Happy birthday."
Tara kissed her forehead. "See you in a few hours." She called down Morpheus' blessing on Willow, who was soon out of it again — but this time sleeping soundly, not leaning on death's door.
And then the doorway darkened. Tara and Dawn both spun around to see Leatherface standing there, staring at the scene before him. Whimpering, he walked up to his father's corpse and bent down to pick up the severed head. He poked it gently, as if to make it talk.
"It's OK, Bub... Robert." Tara spoke to her brother as softly as she could. "You're free now. He can't hurt you anymore."
Leatherface looked up from the head to Tara, absently fingering the hideous mask on his face and saying something unintelligible.
Tara smiled at him. "That's right, you won't have to wear that anymore. You don't have to hide." When he responded by bending over the body of their father and picking up the bloodied chainsaw, looking at it curiously, she felt for him. "Yes, I did that. I had to. Everything's going to be fine now, you're going to get the help you need and..." She trailed off as he gently pulled the strap on the chainsaw, petting the growling machine as if it were a small, deadly animal. Tara raised her voice. "Robert, no! You don't have to... we're free now! He can't -"
They say if you keep a bird in a cage for long enough, it will return to it even if you set it free. And when Leatherface turned away from the corpse of the man who'd decided everything for him his entire life he looked at his sister. His sister who had gone away and left him here, and then come back only to take away everything he had ever known.
With a howl of sorrow, Leatherface revved the saw and charged the three women. Tara was still yelling, desperately pleading with him and between that and the scream of the chainsaw filling her ears, everything else seemed to fade out. So when blood suddenly spurted out his belly and he stopped dead in his tracks, she wasn't sure what was happening; she watched her brother teeter briefly before toppling over onto the saw and uttering a bubbling scream as it dug into his body. Then the saw stalled and Tara turned her head towards Dawn who was gripping the shotgun tight, still pulling the trigger over and over again even though she had already emptied both barrels at him.
Slowly, Tara put her hand out and took the gun away from Dawn. Then she got up on shaky legs and walked over to where Leatherface was lying. A large pool of blood was forming around him and smoke rose from the busted chainsaw, yet somehow he was still alive.
From behind her, she heard Dawn’s tiny, shivering voice. "No, get away from him, he killed Buffy, and—"
"I know." Tara cut her off. "And he's paying for it. But he's my... my brother." She sank down beside him, gently removed the horrific mask and for the first time in years looked at his face. She wished she had any tears left, but she just felt empty.
"Are you going to..." Dawn was surprised to see that under the mask, Leatherface’s own face was... normal. Not good-looking, but not exactly ugly, either. "Are you going to h-heal him?"
But Tara just slowly shook her head. "Some things can't be healed, Dawn. I thought I could reach him, but... If people keep telling you you're a monster, treating you like one, sooner or later you believe them. He never knew anything else. He put on the mask to hide what he really was and he became the monster."
Leatherface's left eye opened and for a second he seemed to try to get up, but the high-pitched groan of pain that escaped his lips made it clear that he wasn't going anywhere. With a last effort he managed to put his hand on Tara's shoulder, and she responded by putting her arms around him. "Shhh, Robert... just be still. It won't hurt much longer." For a few minutes, Dawn watched in awkward silence as the two siblings held each other and Leatherface's breathing grew ever more labored.
And then it stopped.
Epilogue: two and a half years later
Riley edged the SUV onto the dirt road, hearing the gravel rattle under its wheels. He hadn't been out here since he helped them move, after Joyce's death left them only pain and a fight that was no longer theirs in Sunnydale, and so he had had to ask directions from a neighbor. Fortunately, that hadn't been a problem at all.
"Sawyer farm? Sure, I know it. Just go on ahead about three miles, and there's a li'l dirt road on your right. Follow that for a mile or so and you can't miss it. Say hi to the girls for me."
When he reached the house, he noticed how different it looked. The courtyard was cleared of all the wrecks and junk, the house had a fresh coat of paint and the surrounding fields weren't growing wild anymore. He got out. "Anybody home?"
A woman in a wide-brimmed hat came out of a newly built greenhouse, and when she looked up and smiled he recognized Tara. Except she was different; not just the tan and the work clothes, but something about the way she carried herself, confident, secure — and strong, he noted when they hugged. There were the obligatory "so good to see you" variations that tend to pass between two people who have a history together and like each other yet never really knew each other all that well. He asked about the others.
"Dawn's out working somewhere, but Will is —"
"Hey there, mister!" Willow poked her head out the door with a big grin on her face and came jogging up to him.
Riley hugged her. "Great to see you again, Will." It really was; last time he'd seen her she had still been recovering from intestinal surgery - not to mention losing most of the people she loved - and had seemed merely a ghost of herself; now she had a few more lines around her eyes, but she had put on some weight (it suited her), she was freckled from the sun and looked as full of life as he remembered her from the summer they'd all spent together a long time ago.
They sat down on the porch with a big pitcher of lemonade that Willow brought. "So, what's the big news that got the supersoldier defender of Sunnydale all the way out here?"
Riley knew Willow was kidding, but still felt a pang of guilt at having been such a stranger. It had just been hard, with Buffy gone and with everything going on back in Sunnydale... which of course was what brought him here. He took a deep breath. "It's Faith."
"What about her?" Willow immediately went on the defensive, then saw the look on his face. "Oh. I'm sorry. I mean... oh. You mean she's... isn't she?"
Riley nodded. "There was another apocalypse, some hellgod wannabe tried to open the hellmouth. Faith stopped it and as far as we can tell she closed it for good, she just... didn't make it out again. She did good work these last two years, I think you would have... She never did get along with the troops, though", he smiled, gazing off into the distance. Willow shifted uncomfortably on the couch as if she wanted to say something, but settled for cuddling closer to Tara who put her arm around her and kissed the top of her head. They sat in silence for a while before Riley decided to change the subject. "So how are things here?"
"Oh, we're doing pretty good." Tara took a sip of lemonade. "It's hard work, but the neighbors help out sometimes. I guess they're all happy to be rid of my folks, but of course none of them would ever mention it so it's all pretty much don't-ask-don't-tell. And Dawn's going off to college next fall, at least we hope so..."
"Oh, she'd better," Willow grinned, putting her hand on Tara's and squeezing it warmly. "I could definitely go a few more years without another teenager in the house."
"How is Dawn anyway? I mean, last time I saw her..."
Tara and Willow shared a look, as if deciding who was going to go first. "Well, she's..." Willow started and then hesitated, and Tara continued. "She's had it rough. The first few months... well, you know what she was like. She thought she'd lost everyone. Everything that happened here, and then being the one to find Joyce... it took her a lot of time to learn to live again. But I think this place has been good to her, all the work has helped take her mind off things, and she's really taken to it..."
"Plus, y'know..." Willow sighed sadly. "She's Buffy's little sister, and Summers women — tough as extra tough nails. I'm not saying she's all yay-me-my-life-rocks every single day, but she's a trooper. She's going to be fine."
For a while, they talked about other stuff — farming, mostly — but eventually Willow leaned forward and gave him a mock-stern look. "OK, Riley. We all know there's something you wanna say, and you may as well say it."
"That obvious, huh?" He smiled sheepishly. "OK, well... I guess I just don't see how you can live here, after all that's happened. I mean, you've done great things with this place, but..."
Tara looked out over the field for a long time before answering. "There's nothing wrong with this place, Riley. The evil was what my family did and I've promised to make up for it. There's been so much blood spilt here, all we can do is to try and restore some balance, try and cleanse the earth. We grow responsibly, we don't use pesticide, we don't eat meat..." (Riley blushed a little; he couldn't help it, he was a guy.)
"Also, being on first-name basis with a coupla fertility goddesses doesn't exactly hurt the crops... not that we'd use that for personal gain or anything, of course", Willow quickly added when Tara shot her an amused glance. "Say, big fella, we're going to be starting dinner — you are staying for dinner, aren't you?"
"Wouldn't miss it. Do you need any help?"
"Nah. You just take a walk, get a feel for the place. Tell you what, if you want... I mean, of course they're not actually buried there, but we..." Willow took a deep breath and then pointed. "Over under the big elm. We just needed someplace to... y'know. Remember."
A few minutes later Riley sat down on the bench under the elm, looking at the nine plain crosses planted there. Anya, Xander, Giles, Buffy and, somewhat apart from them, the Maclay family. For a while, he just sat there, thinking back on how good life had been for a short while. Of course, he'd been to the scoobies' real graves back in Sunnydale, but for some reason it seemed right that they should be here too - close to the few people who still remembered and loved them. He was deep in thought when suddenly the relative silence was ripped apart by the howl of a small two-stroke engine. Riley looked up in surprise and thought the sound must be coming from the back of the house. A farmboy himself, he knew what it was: a chainsaw cutting something up. He got up to investigate.
At first he didn't recognize her. His mental image of Dawn was still the lanky young teenager whom he'd first run in to at Buffy's dorm right around the time they started dating, but that was almost four years ago and that girl was long gone. In her place was a tall, slim but well-muscled young woman in a work shirt and dungarees, her hair hanging in her face as she worked. She was cutting up firewood with a shiny new chainsaw, a small but powerful tool that seemed to cut through even the toughest branches with no trouble at all. Riley watched her admiringly; she was pretty handy with that thing, he wasn't sure he would have gotten through the pile of wood half as fast as she did.
When she turned the saw off, he cleared his throat. She spun around, and for a second something about the expression on her face scared him. Before he could quite put his finger on it, though, she put on a big smile that seemed almost perfectly normal.
THE END...?
Well... read on...
Sick, Twisted And Evil Alternate Ending: Off With Her Head
(Note the "alternate". Read the previous chapter before you read this.)
Author's note: I posted the last chapter to my usual hunting grounds and got feedback saying "cute ending, but where's the gore?" Words like "chicken" and "pussy" were used — in jocular fashion, but still: irksome. So I said to myself, "Self", I said, "if they want gore, fine, give'em gore." I opened a bottle of whisky, put on a Black Sabbath record and typed until 4AM, making sure to make it as dark, repulsive and disturbing as I possibly could and then some. It scares me a little that this stuff came out of my head. I'm a pretty nice guy, really. But here it is.
Last warning: If you thought the previous chapters were too nasty, they are Disney candyfloss and adorable little puppies eating ice cream in the summer sun compared to this one. I'm going to The Special Hell for this chapter, and anyone who reads it will be right there with me getting poked in the ass by the same pitchfork, burning in the same pot full of molten lava, listening to the same Coldplay records. If that's not your thing, STOP READING. NOW.
Don't say I didn't warn you. Now, let's pick up where we started the last chapter, with Tara healing Willow.
...Tara kissed her forehead. "See you in a few hours." She called down Morpheus' blessing on Willow, who was soon out of it again — but this time sleeping soundly, not leaning on death's door.
And then the doorway darkened. Tara and Dawn both spun around to see Leatherface standing there, staring at the scene before him. Whimpering, he walked up to his father's corpse and bent down to pick up the severed head. He poked it gently, as if to make it talk.
"It's OK, Robert." Tara spoke as softly as she could. "You're free now. He can't hurt you anymore."
Leatherface looked up from the head to Tara, absently grabbing at his face and saying something unintelligible.
Tara smiled at him. "That's right, you won't have to wear that anymore. You don't have to hide." When he responded by bending over the body of their father and picking up the bloodied chainsaw, looking at it curiously, she felt for him. "Yes, I did that. I had to. Everything's going to be fine now, you're going to get the help you need and..." He collapsed in wretched sobs over his father. She got up to join him but he gave her a violent shove, sending her tumbling across the room. Then he he lifted the body with one arm, grabbed the chainsaw in the other, and after one final hurt look at his sister, climbed back up the steps and slammed the door behind him. Dawn ran after him, but the door was locked and all she could do was to pound her fists against it.
"HEEEEEEEEELP! SOMEBODYYY! HEEEELP!"
Tara slowly sat up, starting to realize what had happened. "Dawnie, please don't... there's no one within miles and even if there was, this place is soundproof. Pa used to lock Robert in here when he was a kid. He'd scream for days, but you could stand right outside the door and barely hear it. Once you're locked in here..." her voice shivered, "you don't get out until he lets you out."
"Well can't you... you know... magic it open?"
Tara looked at the door, then looked at Willow, and then shook her head. "I can't... right now the magicks are all that's keeping her alive. If I use some of that to try and break down the door, she'll..."
"What about the gun? On TV they always —"
"No. It's a shotgun, not a rifle. The door's too thick, and there's a padlock on the outside."
Dawn swallowed hard, her lip trembling. Then she turned back to the door and beat her fists bloody against it, clawing her nails out, screaming for help until her voice was down to a whisper. When she couldn't scream anymore, she stumbled down to where Tara was sitting with Willow and lay down beside them, trying not to panic. "Riley knows we're here. Riley knows. He'll..."
"I-I'm sure he will, Dawn. We just have to wait." They knew they were both thinking the same things; if he's OK, if he finds the house, if Leatherface doesn't find him first...
Day 2
"Tara? I'm hungry."
Tara sat with Willow's head in her lap, softly stroking her hair. It was taking all her power just to keep Willow here. "I know, sweetie. I am too." They had gone through the entire basement searching for tools that could help them get out, and when that failed, for anything edible. There was a tap with fresh water in a corner, but otherwise nothing useful; boxes containing some of Tara's mother's clothes — at least they could make fresh bandages for Willow — a few books, various junk, and that was it.
It was hot in here, but stripping down to their underwear and drinking a lot of water helped some. It didn't help Giles, though; his body had been lying in this temperature for two days now and was becoming very ripe. The stench and constant buzzing of flies was almost deafening, even after they gathered the nerve to dump an entire box of clothes over him and shove him into the furthest corner.
Dawn held up one of the books they had found. "Is this any good? I don't think I..." She frowned. "I can't remember if I've read it."
Tara looked at it and smiled. "'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland'. My mother used to read it to me all the time." She took the book, and they both huddled around Willow as Tara read until the sun went down.
"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge..."*
Day 3
"Tara! I got it!" Dawn had managed to use the barrel of the shotgun to punch out the small ventilation opening near the ceiling and now a thin shaft of sunlight lit up the dusky basement. Dawn put her head up to the opening and looked out; it was a beautiful summer's day, and she could see a butterfly fluttering across the lawn just over a foot away from her. But the hole was so small. She could barely force her arm through it, scraping it bloody on the sharp remains of the metal grid that had blocked it to keep rats and rain out. When she pulled her hand back in she had a fistful of grass. She stared at it for a few seconds — green, glistening, fresh — before stuffing it in her mouth and chewing.
"No, Dawn!" Tara tried to stop her, but she refused to open her mouth. "You can't eat that. It won't do any good, you can't digest it."
"I know." Dawn swallowed. "But it tastes like food." She got up again and got a second fist of grass, which she offered to Tara. She hesitated, but the rumbling in her stomach was loud enough to shout down her brain. She took it and ate.
For both of them, it came out both ends a few hours later. Green, sickly. They tried again.
Day 4
Willow was thrashing in her sleep, groaning, her cheeks burning up with fever. Tara was doing her best to keep her still as she dabbed at her face with a wet rag, but it was obvious that her girlfriend was in a lot of pain.
Dawn couldn't understand how she could let this go on. "I think she's waking up. Shouldn't you be healing her again?"
Tara had known this moment would come, and shook her head slowly. "I... I've been trying for hours, Dawnie. I have n-n-nothing left, I'm tapped out."
She carefully lifted the bandage. At first the spell had kept the infection in check, but the wound wasn't healing — on the contrary, it was opening up again, and for the first time in two days the bandage was again soaked wet with Willow's blood.
Dawn tried to get up to sit by Willow's side, but she was too light-headed and settled for crawling over on all fours. "But there's gotta be something... I mean, can't you see that she's hurting?"
"She's dying, Dawn." Tara's voice was surprisingly forceful considering how weak she felt... or maybe it was just that they'd gotten so used to whispering that anything spoken at normal level sounded like a jet plane taking off. "Unless she gets to a doctor immediately, she's going to keep getting worse and she's going to die. It'll take hours and it will hurt like nothing I can imagine. A...and since I can't even keep her asleep anymore, sh-she's going to be awake the whole time..."
Dawn looked at her and then shakily pulled herself up to the ventilation shaft. Somewhere far off, she thought she could hear a small engine revving. "HEEEEEEEELP! RIIIIILEEEY!" Her voice probably didn't even carry to the end of the lawn, but it was loud enough to wake up Willow.
The redhead was even paler than usual, her eyes at half mast and sweat pearling on her face. She tried to speak; at first nothing came out, and the second time around only the last part of the sentence made it. "...ospital?"
"Not yet." Tara's hand trembled as she gently carressed her cheek. "Something came up."
"I think..." Willow grimaced in pain. "Not to be a... party-pooper or anything, but... bu..." Tara almost allowed herself to hope that Willow was going to pass out. She almost did, but then she cried out in agony and was conscious again. "...I should probably get there soonish. Feeling real f-funky here."
"I know. It'll be better soon, I promise. Will?"
"Y-yeah?"
"You know I love you, right?"
"Of c-"
"You know I'd give my life for you? You know I'd do anything to make you stop hurting?"
Willow nodded. "Me too."
"I know. And I have something here that will take the pain away. But I... I can only do it one time, so you just let me know when it gets real bad and I'll make it right for you. OK, sweetie?"
It was anybody's guess whether Willow understood what Tara was getting at, but she nodded weakly. Tara kissed her and then held her, whispering private things in her ear as she waited. It took about half an hour; then Willow squeezed her hand as the pain grew unbearable. "Tara... please..."
Their eyes met. "OK. Close your eyes and open your mouth." Willow complied. "I love you." Tara put the shotgun to Willow's mouth and pulled the trigger. The blast left both Tara and Dawn deaf for several minutes, and Willow dead for a whole lot longer than that as the top half of her head dissolved into a rainbow-like fountain of pinkish brains, copper curls and crimson blood stretching from her upper jaw to the wall two feet away. Dawn remained sitting at Willow's feet unable to look away, while Tara stumbled into a corner where she huddled, shaking, until night fell and everything was dark.
Day 5
Dawn was too weak to even stand up and reach the ventilation shaft. Not that it mattered; they had picked every square inch they could reach free of grass, and there was no food anywhere. She had ripped out a tooth trying to bite a chunk out of her shoe, and it was hurting bad. She was even almost too tired to cry. Almost. At some point she thought that Buffy was sitting next to her, stroking her hair like she always had when something was wrong... but when she looked up it was Tara.
"How are you feeling?"
"I wanna go home." Dawn sniveled. "I'm so hungry and I'm tired and I just wanna go home. Why can't we just go home... why isn't there any food..."
"There is." Tara's fists were clenched almost as tightly as her jaw as she seemed to make a decision. "We have fresh meat."
Dawn looked at her and frowned before she realized what she was talking about. "Are you INSANE?!"
"Dawn, I know it's..."
"It's WILLOW!"
"No. It's not her." Tara rocked her, sobbing herself now. "It's not her. She's gone."
"Where did she... I mean, shouldn't we have given her last rites or something?"
"I don't know. I have no idea, Dawn, we never talked about that... Jewish stuff... but I have to believe she's someplace good. She was the best... the best person I ever... and she would want us to-"
"How can you SAY that?"
"Do you wanna die?" Tara tried to get to her feet, but stumbled and fell on top of Dawn. It took them a lot of effort to just disentangle, each limb seemed to weigh a ton. "I'm done, Dawnie. This is it. No one's coming for us, and I spent too much energy trying to save..." She couldn't even say it. "I need to eat something or I'll die. Soon. She died trying to save me, and Buffy died trying to save you. What the hell was the point if we're just going to give up? W-we have to be strong, Dawnie..."
"What about..." Dawn hated herself for having to choose. "What about Giles?"
"He's spoiled. You can smell it. If we eat him, we'll just get sick."
"This IS sick!"
"I know." Tara hugged her. "But it's our only chance."
It took them a few minutes to make their way over to Willow's body. Tara had draped an old shirt over her girlfriend's ruined head.
"How do we..." Dawn swallowed. "How... we don't have a n-knife or anything."
"We'll have to use our teeth." Tara removed the stiff and dry bandage around Willow's stomach. "W-we'll start around the wound and w-w-work our way..."
Over the last two days, hunger - like the stench of death - had become something so mundane that they'd almost forgotten it. Now they remembered. Thousands of years of civilization and millions of years of evolution took a back seat as something older took over. Survive. Eat. Gorge. The roar of hunger in her stomach made Dawn forget the pain in her jaw. For her eleventh (or was it twelfth? She wasn't sure) birthday her mother had served veal. It had been rare, with a delicious red sauce and yams, and incredibly tender. The best meat she'd ever had.
She thought about that as she chewed. And bit. And tore. And chewed. And bit. And tore. And chewed.
Day 6
Wake up.
Try not to throw up.
Eat.
Try not to throw up.
Think.
"Tara?"
They hadn't spoken to each other since yesterday. Tara seemed to be retreating into herself, moving only to get a piece of meat and then curling up in a corner with her arms around her head. Dawn, on the other hand, felt stronger; she'd been able to keep most of what she ate yesterday and this morning, and as long as she didn't think about it or look at Willow's...
(it's not her, she's gone)
...Its body she found she could actually both think and move better than yesterday. And she remembered that there was something Tara had to do.
"Tara? Shouldn't we be trying the door?" Ignoring her sobs, Dawn pulled the apathetic Tara halfway across the floor before Tara found her feet and began to walk on her own. They reached the door together and Dawn did her best to support the older girl as she let her hands roam over the door, settling on the lock.
Tara took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing. She had eaten, she had slept, she had recharged. It should be enough. Then she pushed with everything she had. "Aperi!" The lock clicked open, the padlock broke and the door swung open all of two inches before stopping dead against something. She peeked through the crack, then exhaled violently, stumbled back to her corner and began laughing hysterically.
Leatherface had made sure they wouldn't get out. A heavy old wooden dresser - roughly the size of a Coke machine - was pulled in front of the door, blocking it as effectively as you'd please.
Day 7
Dawn looked at It, her mind's artillery effectively shooting down any thoughts that tried to use the W word. It was now dressed only in a pink short-sleeved blouse pulled up to expose the huge gap in Its stomach. The legs had had the most meat and they'd worked some pretty good chunks out of them. But something was new; when Dawn had gone to sleep yesterday It had still been wearing panties, but Tara had obviously fed during the night. The area between Its legs was a gaping red hole, and Dawn again had to fight the gag reflex; she wasn't sure if it was because of the image of Tara lying between Its legs eating or her own immediate reaction - Damn, why didn't I think of that, it must have been a lot easier to chew... She looked at Tara who was weeping in her sleep, blood drying on her dirty face, only the area under her eyes kept clean by a constant flow of salt water.
Dawn turned back to It with dismay. The exposed skin was turning gray, and when she tried to bite a chunk out of Its leg it not only tasted bad but also seemed a lot tougher than it had been yesterday. The food was spoiling; she'd better eat as much as possible today, by tomorrow it would probably be too late. An idea struck her and she unbuttoned the blouse
(Pink... Willow always liked pink...)
carefully, making sure she didn't rip out any buttons even though her hands shook. She ran her hands over Its exposed breasts; they seemed whiter, more supple than the rest of her, as if the blouse had kept that part of her fresher than the rest. She grabbed the left breast with both hands and bent down to take a bite.
"NO! M-m-mine!"
Suddenly Tara was on her, dragging her away, and for a few seconds they struggled, fighting like dogs over a bone, kicking, scratching, biting, Dawn pulling at Tara's hair. Eventually the larger woman got the upper hand and pinned Dawn down. They stared at each other, teeth bared, until the feral expression on Tara's face melted away into one of unimaginable grief. "Dawnie, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... but I can't let you... not there. There's enough for both of us, but... not there. That's mine. Sh-she's..." She grabbed one of Its stiff arms and angled it up towards Dawn. "H-here, the palm is the best bit, I-I've been saving them for you..."
And they ate.
Day 8
The heat and stench weren't as bad anymore. They were used to it, like rats living at the city dump don't complain when someone drops off a truckload of bad shrimp. And for now, the hunger was gone. Despite the foul taste, they had been able to keep what they ate yesterday. But they also knew it was the last meal for a while; they had tried to eat a little more today, but It tasted awful and only Tara had been able to keep anything down. And so they sat, waiting.
As the light started to dim, Dawn found the book they'd been reading from, but it had been lying right by Willow's head and was ruined, soaked through with dried blood so you couldn't even turn the pages.
"Tara?" No answer. "How does it end?"
Dawn had almost forgot that she asked when Tara finally responded. "She wakes up. It was all a dream." There was a pause, and then Tara recited from memory. "She pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days."*
Dawn nodded. That was a happy ending. "Tara? Is this a dream?"
There was no answer.
Day... 12, possibly 13
Dawn drank some more water. The hunger was gnawing in her stomach as she crept back to her corner. It was the most curious feeling; for the last... however long it had been since Tara had stopped talking, she had been trying to remember what happened before all this. For some reason her memories seemed to get foggier all the time; the last 3-4 months were pretty clear, but anything before that was weird. She could remember her mother, and Buffy, and she knew there had been stuff before this summer but... she just couldn't remember any of it.
She wondered if Tara had the same problem. She never answered anymore. Occasionally she'd call out Willow's name in her sleep, but mostly she just sat in her corner. Lately she'd taken to staring at Dawn. Dawn knew because she stared back.
She was so hungry.
Day ?
The struggle was not as brief as it would have been if either of them had been strong enough to stand or kick, but not very long either. There was a weak groan as teeth sank into emaciated flesh and one pair of hands was forced to let go of the shotgun. There was a blast. There was a scream of pain, followed by a sickening crack as the shotgun was brought down like a billy club on the wounded girl's head. There were sobs.
And then there was chewing.
...night... not sure... many many
Hungry.
The pain when she bit into her own hand was intense, but not as bad as that in her stomach, and it kept her from passing out. There was a lot of blood, but it tasted so good. She lapped it up and kept gnawing until the first finger came off. Not much meat on it, but every little bit helps.
And after all, she was right-handed. Lots of people get by with one arm.
Hungry.
Eat.
Survive.
* Excerpts from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" are written by Lewis Carroll and are in the public domain.
Author's note: There you go. Don't EVER tell me my stories aren't gory enough. Please. I like being able to sleep at night.
If this were a movie I'd end it by blasting "Chainsaw" by The Ramones, so go put that on now.
Texas chain saw massacre
They took my baby away from me
But she'll never get out of there
She'll never get out of there...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-02 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-09 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 06:43 am (UTC)I do have one complaint. The alternate ending was excellent and reminded me of the old Hitchcock and Serling TV shows. But it left me with two questions.
- What happened to Gpa and Leatherface?
- Did Riley ever get there?
If Riley did, was he killed? Before or after he discovered the horror in the basement? Was he attacked by her?
If he wasn't killed, what happened?
I think it's time for a sequel. After all it IS coming up on Halloween again. ;D
no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 01:16 pm (UTC)What happened to Gpa and Leatherface?
Leatherface went forth into the world to walk the Earth and find himself. And fight crime. (Nah.) Grandpa, most likely, starved to death.
Did Riley ever get there?
I honestly don't know; I left that deliberately vague. There's one scene in Day 4 where Dawn hears an engine from far away - that might be Leatherface cutting Riley up. On the other hand, it's possible that he gets there sooner or later. If I ever write a sequel - which isn't all that likely, since I've just about killed everyone off, but you never know - he'll probably be in it, along with either Insane!One-armed!Tara or Insane!One-armed!Dawn.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-08 02:21 pm (UTC)Nonsense! You've still got the entire cast of "Angel" to go through.