Natural Born Killers

It used to be the killing was hard and the rest was easy. Now,the killing was easy. And everything else was a chore. Especially when she had to seek refuge in the forest. Especially when she was being pursued.

Her ife was primal. At it's most basic it was live or die,kill or be killed. That's the way she looked at it anyways,that's they way she had to look at it,for the sake of her sister and her mother as much as for her own. Why don't they understand,why don't they leave her alone?

From her hiding place under the canopy of three-lobed ferns,Buffy Summers watched as the fanatics came closer,as their lights began to sweep across her position. She looked toward the light,toward the shadows put in motion by the light. They were long and sinuous,blackened twins of dangling branches,dark projections of viney tendrils. They were the shadows of fern stalks and dead lims and narrow-trunked saplings. With the eratic motion of the light,the shadows moved across the forest floor,turning it into a nest of vipers,a living mass of serpents that crawled on and near and over the figure lying prone under the ferns.

With each new angle of the light, with each shift of the shadows,it was as though the snakes were more real. It was as though they were twining around her,taking her for one of their own. She closed her eyes and buried her head into the ground,shielding herself from the light,from the shadows,from the images conjured from the shadows.

Though her eyes were closed the images did not dissolve. They pursued her into the darkness,and from there,there was no more retreat. She wanted to scream,to get up and run,to escape. The impulse was nearly overpowering,but somewhere within the rhytmn of this high-tempoed urge beat her last remnant of rationality. And it was this meager touchstone to reason that kept her where she was,that prevented her from betraying her position,that held her back from charging toward the road. That slowly brought her back to her senses.

When she looked up again it was dark. Buffy climbed to her feet,hoisted the carcass to her shoulder,gripped her axe in her left hand and headed deeper into the woods. She didn't stop until she reached her sanctuary. Until she reached the crypt.

She was cold,and sweat-dampened clothes clung in chill swaths to her skin. The act of gathering wood,breaking twigs and fixing them against the rocks kept her a little warm,but as she stuck a match and the fire roared to life,the chill was already beginning to sink deep inside. An air pocket in the wood was suddenly breached and a tiny jet of fire shot out. Toward her, toward her eye. There was a fizzing,crinkling sound,the sound of hair singeing. She jerked her face away,but the flame had been so bright,so close,she was momentarily blinded. She pulled back,sitting up on her haunches. She felt her eye,and her lashes dis-
intergrated into dust at the touch.

The bright image imprinted on her retina faded,and she looked again at the fire. There was another crack,another tiny air jet as
the fire grew. She smiled,allowing herself a private laugh. Of all the black thoughts she had harbored that evening,the last thing she had imagined was being blinded stroking a fire. She laughed again,this time out loud. She scoffed then,feeling the moisture of a tear sliding down the side of her face. Reaching a hand up,she wiped it away heatedly and continued to watch the ever growing fire as it danced before her.

'I knew this was ganna happen. I knew,that eventually,that at some point,this was going to happen.' Deep in thought,her eyes unconsciously locked onto the carcass next to her,the body of a young girl with a horrified expression on her face. She stoked the cold clamy cheek,brushed soft light brown almost blonde hair away from tiredly closed lids. 'I knew they'd find me.'

And as Buffy said it,she felt it. A band of pressure over her stomach. Her head yanked to look over her shoulder,and again they were after her,Angel's men. She had to get moving again. Glancing at the carcass on the rocks beside her,she placed a soft kiss on its forehead.

"I love you Dawnie." She whispered,a feeling of guilt and pain washing over her spontaniously. She barely registered the sound of guns before a speeding bullet exploded into the rock wall next to her head,a warning shot or she was really lucky. Forcing her muscles to cooperate,she promised to herself that she would find whomever had killed her sister,and she would make sure this person suffered a great deal before draining them dry.

Buffy turned over,pushing her throbbing legs to keep moving no matter what. She still had other loved ones that Angelus could easily get to and it was a shame that he knew that. There was her mother,Joyce Summers. Her best friend Willow,and her best guy friend Xander. And even then there was still Giles,Cordy,Wesly,Fred,Gunn,OZ,and her boyfriend Riely.

Remembering all her loved ones,she put on an extra burst of speed and rocketed through the remainder of forest and into the suburban part of Santa Carla. Within seconds she had once again lost the men tailing her,but not without consequences. She could
barely breathe. She was losing all muscular control. The most dominant sound was quickly becoming the pounding at her temples. She could no longer see clearly,and her solitary awareness was becoming a physical pain,her agony. Her only outlet was her voice
her only protest became her screams. Her voice shrieked from deep within her throat out into the empty stretch of road. Every ounce of reserve she possessed,every bit of energy that still pumped through her body,became focused on her lungs,in her throat,
in the raw expulsion of her unintelligible cries of pain and terror.

Though her sight had become again an untrustworthy ally,she was aware of movement far off to the right,a car coming from the city. It was them again,she could smell it,Angelus and William and all their unholy undead crew of vampires coming to get her.
They were smart for the undead,the second she had lost them they had figured out she was heading back home and that's where they
were headed too. Not if she could get there first though.

Staggering to her feet,Buffy removed a gun that had been firmly tucked into her waist band. Taking aim as steady as she could with her rising panic and trembling hand,she shot at the car twice,each of her shots hiting the mark. The car screeched spinning dangerously on the road four times before coming to a jerked halt. Seizing the oppurtunity,Buffy bolted down the path
alongside the road it offered cover from both cops and Angelus and Spike's goons. That's when it hit her hard. She dropped tp her knees. Maybe she would be too late to help her friends. Afterall they had gotten to Dawn already,there had to be someone else working for them,otherwise Dawn would still be alive.

Using this discovery as a motivation,Buffy began her long run back to SunnyDale. It would take her at least a week to get there
by foot,but with any amount of luck,if she could get a car or hitch a ride,the trip would be dumbed down to two days max. With any amount of luck...