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"The story I heard was that no one who enters Salem's Lot comes out alive."
Mark frowned. "That does have more than a ring of truth to it. Luckily,
you went almost straight
for the church, which is a place that… well, I find myself drawn to
it, sometimes. As for anyone
else… Vampires seem to be able to sense fresh meat."
They were sitting on a balcony overlooking the Lot's downtown; night
had fallen for good some two
hours before. Inside, there was a backpack full of wooden stakes that
Buffy had oohed and aahed
over, as well as a hefty crossbow that Mark had said was an antique
from the store Barlow and
Straker had run. A souvenir. A trophy.
"If there are any vampires left, they don't seem to be barking up your tree."
Mark sighed. "They know me too well, it seems. Like your… Sunnydale?
Are the vampires at your
window every night?"
"One was," she said without thinking. "Uh, but he was an exception.
Usually the vampires stayed
out of my way unless they were trying to end the world."
Mark nodded and sat back in his lawn chair. Buffy watched him scan the
streets for any movement,
and she suddenly realized the depth of his sacrifice and commitment.
This is a guy that's been fighting vampires for twenty years, and expects
to keep doing it for the rest of
his life. She felt a rush of sympathy for this tired young man, whose
situation was so much like her
own. Except he's been doing this all alone, with no friends, no help…
It's not like he could tell a
prospective buddy or girlfriend, yeah, I hunt vampires for a living.
And you? The unreality of her life
seemed to pale against the stark reality of his. So lonely.
Mark's jaw dropped. He was looking off to the east.
"Mark? What is it?"
He pointed, and in the moonlight, Buffy could see the slight shaking of his hand.
"There's a light on in the Marsten House." Mark's tone brought a chill to her spine.
We're not alone anymore, she thought.
* * *
Four hours earlier, Brian Redfield pulled his eighteen-wheeler into
the parking lot of a truck stop
near the state line. He still hadn't stopped thinking about the blonde
girl that had shared his cab for
those two hundred miles. He still hadn't stopping thinking about leaving
that girl alone in such a
dangerous place. Why, it was practically suicide. Even worse, it was
more like murder. I mean, what
is it if you give someone the gun they use to shoot themselves with?
If that's not murder, it's the next
worst thing. In the approaching darkness, his recollections about how
she carried herself and what
kind of self-confident girl she was seemed insubstantial and frivolous.
More like you were making excuses for her, Brian. Like you were tellin'
yourself, ah, it's all right,
she'll be fine, because she can take care of herself. All the while
you knew it wasn't true at all.
The shadows were getting really long now, and as Brian pulled his truck
in between two other parked
rigs, the milky black completely covered his vehicle.
He turned off the engine and sat there, indecisive. What should he do?
Should he go back and try to
save her? Maybe she's already dead.
What a happy thought.
Maybe she doesn't want any help, she said as much just before she got out of the cab.
Just because a person doesn't want help doesn't mean they don't need it.
Maybe those stories are true.
Do you want to risk your life for someone you barely know?
A hand tapped on his window. He rolled it down. A man, dressed in black,
wearing shades, was
standing on something Brian couldn't see. He was smiling toothily.
"Could I come in? I've got the most amazing thing to show you."
The dark man's words made Brian feel dizzy. And his eyes… So deep and colourless.
His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. "Sure. What is it?"
The dark man's smile grew wider. Were those teeth bigger?
"It's wondrous."
The dark man fell on Brian.
* * *
Across the vacant little town of Salem's Lot, there was a stirring.
Things long dead shook off their
rusty shackles and rose up to take a look around. The endless dream
of the undead began to focus,
lose its fuzziness. Under Hank Pruett's old trailer, where a deep hole
had been dug years before, and
the worms still squirmed out of the dirt on rainy nights, something
inhuman rolled over, pulled itself
up, crawled out from underneath, and stared east, towards the silhouette
of the Marsten House. It
felt a calling, a summons that could not be ignored, and it began to
walk. A half-mile away, in a
bomb shelter built in the days when Cuba wasn't just a place to get
great cigars, the combination
lock in the door spun back and forth, tinkling like a party favour,
coming to a stop on the number
66. The heavy metal door swung slowly open, and two creatures, barely
recognizable as former
members of the human race, shambled out into the moonlight. They, too,
felt a calling. Their gazes
locked upon the light in the upper window of the Marsten House, and
feet started moving. Across
Salem's Lot, a half-dozen vampires found their way out of their various
hiding places to shuffle
down village streets, all heading for the same destination, where a
man wearing a pastor's robe and a
twisted cross stood on the balcony overlooking the town, his arms spread
out in welcome, his harsh
laughter echoing, echoing, echoing…
* * *
"Whatever's going down, it's going down tonight. We may not have until sunrise."
Buffy watched Mark fill a packsack with stakes and vials of holy water.
"But they can't come in unless they're invited."
Mark stopped what he was doing and gave her a sardonic grin. "That doesn't
stop them from
burning this house down."
"Oh. It seems like I've heard similar logic before, but my memory and
I have a seriously
dysfunctional relationship."
He looked at her then, top to bottom, assessing something in his mind.
There was a nugget of fear in
his eyes that she didn't like. "Buffy, are you really a Vampire Slayer?
You're not playing with me,
here, right?"
She took a stake out of the packsack, whirled around, and threw it at
the far wall. It thunked into
the drywall, the point imbedded deep enough to start a crack that stretched
up to the ceiling.
Mark grunted. "You didn't have to wreck my wall just to make a point."
"Sorry." But she wasn't. It felt so good, throwing that stake. She was
looking forward to whatever
they were going to face. I need this chance to stretch my legs. So
to speak.
He finished packing his stuff, and then he turned to her, his face deadly serious.
"Okay, Buffy, here's the deal. They've all got to be staked, no matter
how many there are. I don't
think there will be many, maybe four or five, but none of them gets
to leave. Understand?"
She smiled. "Don't worry. I don't plan on giving any vampires a 'get out of jail free' card."
"Cool. Let's go."
* * *
The Marsten House stood near the top of a hill, looking down upon the
town that it owned, a fat
and pompous ruler on its comfortable throne. It was born of shadows,
and would always be a
familiar home for darkness. Standing outside its front door, with the
full moon shining its glassy
light down, you could swear that you could hear the faint sounds of
screaming coming from the
second floor, and you'd want to dismiss those sounds, thinking, ah,
it's the wind rattling the old
timbers. And then you remember that there is no wind, not on this night,
not on any nights. The
boarded-up windows were like eyes closed to the world, not because
it didn't want to see outwards,
but because it wanted to look inwards. What danced in the black was
fun to watch.
And then, thought Buffy, it gets spooky.
This had to be a haunted house. The evil that pulsated from the outer
walls felt so obvious to her
that she wanted to clutch at Mark's arm and ask him if he could feel
it too, feel the wrongness of this
place. Nothing in Sunnydale had ever felt this bad. But when she looked
at the older man, she saw a
resigned focus in his eyes, and it suddenly occurred to her that she
might have had that same look
on that final night, when she was approaching the place where Angel
was, where she would have to
kill him or the world would end. A resigned focus that said, I'll do
this, because I have to, but I will
hate every moment. She wondered what Mark was expecting to find in
this haunted house. Or who he
was expecting to meet.
As they approached the front steps, he put out his hand quickly to stop
Buffy from moving. He
studied the outside of the house for a few moments. Buffy could hear
faint sounds coming from
inside; stealthy, squishy sounds. Finally her foot wanted to start
tapping in impatience.
"Maybe we should go in the back door?" She took a step towards the back
of the house, but his
voice, calm and quietly powerful, stopped her.
"In an evil place such as this, the only way in is the front door. That's
the way they wouldn't expect
us to use. Besides, we're invited guests. Guests come in the front
door."
Buffy blinked. "Invited…? Won't the door be locked?"
Mark walked up the steps to the front porch and stood off to the side
of the doorway. "These kinds
of doors are never locked. Now, don't stand in front." He gestured
to the other side of the doorway
and motioned for her to crouch down. When she did so, he carefully
reached over and turned the
doorknob. The wooden frame started to swing inwards, and…
BOOM!
The sound of the shotgun going off was so loud, the shock of the noise
knocked Buffy to the
ground. Mark must have been expecting it, she saw, because he never
even flinched. She scrambled
to her feet and looked in the doorway.
Propped up on a chair was a shotgun, with a complicated series of strings
tied up between the inner
door handle and the trigger. If we had been standing in front of the
doorway… She looked back
down the driveway and wondered how far the buckshot went before gravity
pulled it all to the
ground. Mark allowed himself a little smile.
"Sorry, I should have said something first."
"Like what? Hope you brought your bulletproof vest? I thought we were hunting vampires here."
He looked inside. The house seemed quiet. So far. "Someone in this house
has a fine sense of
tradition. But I think from here on in, it'll be stakes to the heart
and fangs to the throat. You
ready?"
"When you are."
They walked in together.
Upon entering the Marsten House, they found themselves in a foyer, with
a staircase leading
upwards, a hallway leading to the rear of the building, a living room
to their left, and a dining room
to their right. The house was dark, dusty, and seething with menace.
"So where should we…" Buffy began, before Mark cut her off with a gesture
to his lips. He pointed
upwards. She could just hear the careful footsteps of somebody trying
to sneak around upstairs. He
pointed downwards. She could just hear the scraping noises of boxes
being moved in the basement…
or perhaps coffins.
"Let's split up," he suggested.
"Are you sure you're all right by yourself?" she asked.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that question?"
"Only if you want to find out the answer the hard, painful way."
"Right. I'll take the upstairs, then."
"Ooo, the basement, the place to go for all your party needs."
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight, tossing it
to her. He put one foot on the
first step and turned towards her. "Good luck."
She smiled. "I'll meet you upstairs after I've cleaned up downstairs."
He nodded, and went up the stairs with the grace and wariness of a cat.
* * *
Buffy passed by the back door on her way to the basement stairs, and
saw that Mark had been right.
There were four huge bars set across the doorway, and even with her
strength, it might have taken all
night to get in. So they wanted us to come in the front door, hoping
to take at least one of us out. It
occurred to her that there may be more than one booby-trap set up in
this house, and when she
looked down the basement steps, she was greeted with total darkness.
I can't even see the stairs…
hmmm. She flicked on the flashlight, and the white light confirmed
her sudden suspicion; after the
fourth step down, the rest of the staircase had been cut away. If she
had simply wandered blithely
down these steps, she would fallen and landed not on the basement floor,
but on a sheet of plywood
with nails poking nicely up through the wood. A painful way to die.
She got down on her haunches and tried to get a look around the basement
with the light. The stairs
were right in the middle of the house, and the basement looked to be
a full one, covering the whole
building's size. So that meant that once she got down there, they could
come at her from all
directions. The light was shaking. Her hand was shaking. She observed
this phenomenon curiously
for a moment, trying to figure out what the deal was. She wasn't afraid,
not like when she was
hunting the Master, or when she was facing down the man she once loved
(still loved, thank you very
much). No, this was something else, something new…
Excitement. Anticipation. She wanted to risk her life. Was it that she
craved the adrenaline rush of
cheating Death on a nightly basis? Was it that with the love of her
life gone forever, she didn't think
she had much else to live for? Was it that she had been born for this,
and she had gone without
following the constraints of her destiny for so long that she was feeling
like a junkie on withdrawal,
with the chance for another fix just moments away.
"I hope this is what the doctor ordered."
She turned off the flashlight and tucked it in the back of her jeans.
Taking a deep breath, she moved
down to the last stair, grabbed the wood, flipped up and swung down,
her legs flying past the
nail-ridden plywood. She let go, and she flew several feet, landing
into a cold, cold body with sharp
teeth and a ravenous hunger. But Buffy's fix had the stronger pull,
or so the vampire discovered.
* * *
Mark reached the top step and looked around the landing. Only one door
was open. That door. To
the room, the fateful room that old Marsten had hung himself, the fateful
room that Mark had been
tied up in as a kid by the hateful Straker, the fateful room that Mark
had worked free from his
bonds just in time to surprise his captor. In the back of his mind,
the child that had been left behind
in that room twenty years before woke up and started gibbering mindlessly.
Mark knew who he'd
find in that room. It was Destiny. It was Salvation. It was…
"Mark, my boy, how very nice to see you again, after all these years."
Father Callahan smiled at the young vampire slayer. His robes, tattered
and faded, hung from his
undead body like sheets on a clothesline. His face looked more youthful
than Mark remembered,
but maybe it was just the eyes, and how they burrowed into your soul
and brought out hidden
treasures, darker than nightfall on the wrong side of the moon.
Mark brought the cross out from the backpack in a smooth, practiced
gesture and held it between
them.
The cross glowed.
"Somehow I knew it was you, Father."
The vampire priest chuckled. "How wonderful. And you brought us a young
girl to play with. You
always were a conscientious young man."
Mark grimaced. The cross was getting hot. "I wouldn't be too sure that
the girl is easy pickings,
Father. She's fought vampires before."
Father Callahan started circling the younger man, grinning all the while.
The door slammed shut.
"I'm sure our friend Ben will take good care of her. Right now, you
have to worry about yourself, I
think. Can you feel the evil in this room, Mark? How the hairs on the
back of your neck stand up? I
feel so at home, here. Tell me… How strong is your faith, my boy?"
They could hear a loud commotion from downstairs. A scream, then a cry of pain.
"Oh, my," said the vampire. "I think the fun has started already. Shall
we get this over with so I can
join my congregation?" The undead creature advanced on Mark, and the
young man took a couple
of wary steps backward, holding the cross out in front of him with
a desperation that he had never
expected.
"Father, only one of us is leaving this room alive tonight. Since you're
already dead, that narrows it
down some." Mark's back was almost against the far wall, and suddenly
the glow from the cross
flickered and died.
Father Callahan laughed. "I'm sorry, my boy; has your trinket run out
of juice? How unfortunate
for you."
Mark looked down and saw that he was standing in the middle of a pentagram
drawn into the floor.
He fumbled around for his backpack, searching for something, anything
to help him out. The
vampire drew closer.
"Have I told you, young man, how Ben found me, hiding in the New York
subways like a cornered
rat? How like a hero he was, bravely risking death to face me on a
deserted subway platform. Yet he
believed the same as you, that faith would keep him safe."
Father Callahan touched Mark's cheek tenderly.
"But faith is nothing without love."
* * *
Man, am I glad stakes are recyclable. After Buffy had wasted the first
vampire she landed on, she
found herself backed into a corner, with another half-dozen vampires
slowly closing in. Behind
them, she could see a man, sitting idly on top of a coffin. He looked
bored. But these ones… they
just looked hungry. Now that was a familiar sight. She set the flashlight
on the ledge behind her, so
the whole basement was somewhat illuminated.
"Silent much? You people aren't charter members of the local Glee Club,
are you? How am I
supposed to banter if I'm doing all the talking?"
The vampire in the middle, the Herb Tarlek dress-alike with pants two
sizes too big and a tie that
had seen better days back when its owner could still see days without
hiding in basements and
freshly-dug graves… This vampire growled.
"Discovery of the vocal cords is a good first step. Now we're at the
level of a Stallone flick. Care to
upgrade to Bruce Willis status?" Buffy raised the stake, bluffed to
the right, and spun to the left, her
foot coming up in a roundhouse karate kick that sent a vamp flying.
With the added maneuvering
space, she tackled another vampire at the knees, and before the others
could advance, she staked it
in the heart. The undead creature exploded in a shower of dust. Rolling
quickly away, she jumped to
her feet right in front of the vampire she had just kicked and disposed
of him in a similarly efficient
manner. Now there were four left, including Herb the talkative one,
and they were a little stunned by
the sudden turn of events. Taking advantage of their uncertainty, she
leapt at Herb, bringing the
stake down in a finishing arc, but Herb came out of his reverie fast
enough to block her blow. They
crashed to the floor, and the other vampires jumped on top of them.
Buffy felt cold hands grabbing
at different body parts -
"Hey! Do I - oof! - know you?"
- and she wiggled around like a snake in an attempt to get them off.
One of her fists found an
unprotected head, and a vamp staggered back. Her right knee drove into
Herb's crouch, causing him
to scream like a little girl. Whipping around on her back, the cross
on her necklace flew around and
caught another vampire, closing in for the bite, right on the cheek.
He drew back quickly, crying out
in pain. The burning smell made Buffy cough. There was one more vampire,
and it had waited for
the right moment. The two-by-four that he held in his hands came around
for a home-run swing;
Buffy caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and ducked,
so the wood glanced off her
head. The chunk of wood came around for another blow, but this time
Buffy grabbed it on the
downswing and yanked, pulling the vampire towards her body, where her
stake was waiting. Another
shower of dust.
She rolled up to the wall and got up on her feet again. Three left,
plus that bored guy over there by
the coffins.
"You know, I really do this better with some background music. Anyone got some Aqua?"
They fell on her. Or at least, they tried.
A kick, placed just so in the center of the chest.
"I'm a Barbie girl…"
A karate chop, placed just so, crushing an Adam's apple.
"In a Barbie world…"
An elbow, placed just so in the side of the head.
"Life in plastic…"
A hard overhand toss of a stake, placed just so directly over the heart.
"It's fantastic."
She grabbed Herb and spun him into the vampire with the new cross tattoo
on his cheek. With those
two occupied on the dance floor, Buffy dashed over to retrieve her
stake. They rushed at her
side-by-side, and she came at them, splitting the defense, taking their
arms and turning, using
centrifugal force to pull them around together, a merry-go-round with
one final stop: the cement
wall. Cross Tattoo reeled back from the wall, and Buffy drove the stake
through his back, shattering
his molecular cohesion. Herb was still standing, but was quite dazed.
He turned towards the Vampire
Slayer and put his arms out in a gesture for help.
"I may be a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world," she said to him coldly,
raising the stake one last
time and driving it into the vampire's heart.
"But I'm nobody's darling."
* * *
With a cry, Mark pushed away from the former priest and staggered backwards.
"No games, Father. This time it ends." Mark stepped away from the pentagram,
and the cross came
back to life, but with less heat and light than before.
The vampire smiled. "Your faith stutters, my boy. Do you not realize
that you require absolute faith
to defeat me? Has your God forsaken you?" He advanced again.
"Stay back!" Mark yelled, his voice cracking slightly. "Stay back in the name of God!"
The cross glowed more brightly for a moment, and Father Callahan shrank
back, hissing. Mark felt
the power of the cross, the power of his faith, coursing through him
like an electric charge that
didn't want to die. It was in that second, that infinitesimal moment
- Mark was closer to God than at
any time in his life. He was closer to true faith, to deliverance divine.
My Lord, I am your servant,
and I shall not want, but this is real, God this is WORKING, can you
say Hallelujah? Faith don't fail
me now… But there was that small little nugget of doubt, wasn't there?
After all these years, after all
the vigilance and sacrifice, there was something missing, something
vital.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," Mark began
even as the cross dimmed
slightly. Father Callahan straightened, grinning toothily.
"Your faith is failing you, isn't it, Mark? Oh, yes, just as it failed Ben Mears, just as it failed me."
"GET BACK!" Mark roared, shoving the cross in the vampire's face. Oh,
Lord, what is happening?
Why isn't it working? What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?
"You'll make a good vampire, Mark. So graceful and focused, especially
for a human. A born
leader. You can help us with our plans."
Mark was willing the cross to grow brighter, for the faith to come back
from wherever it was fleeing
to. Come on! Lord, why hast thou forsaken me? "Plans? What plans?"
Delay him, get him talking
until I can get this thing working again.
"Oh, my boy, we have big plans. You didn't think we came back to Salem's
Lot for the nostalgia,
did you?"
Mark never saw the vampire's hand come up and swat the cross out of
his hands, but he felt the
stinging aftermath, and he howled in pain. What hurt even more were
the Father's next words:
"We came back for you."
* * *
Buffy wiped the vampire dust off the stake, watching the man sitting
on the coffin. He got up and
stretched, yawning indulgently. She walked carefully to within ten
feet of him.
"So what's your deal? You like to watch?"
The man's face was expressionless, indifferent. His words were delivered
in a casual, effortless
manner that nevertheless chilled Buffy's spine.
"I've heard of you. A Vampire Slayer. I had thought that Mark and I
were the only ones, and it
turns out that somebody actually has to do this for a living."
She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Mark and…" Her eyes widened.
"You're Ben Mears! Mark's
friend! Great, he's upstairs, and probably needs some help… Wait a
minute - why didn't you help
me just now?"
He leaned back against the coffin. "You said it - I like to watch. Besides,
in all the confusion, you
might have thought I was a vampire, and staked me in the heart."
Buffy drew her eyebrows close. "Uh-huh. Well, let's get upstairs and
help Mark out." She turned
and started for the stairs.
"I also wanted to see if the stories were true," he said from behind
her. "It's one thing to hear about
a legend, and quite another to see one in action."
She pushed the nail-studded sheet of plywood out of the way. "Don't
sell my story to Hollywood
just yet. Still waiting for a killer ending."
Ben took the gun out from where it was tucked into his belt at the small
of his back and pointed it at
her head.
"I think we may have one here."
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