MAU: The Slayer-Voices in the Darkness By Allen W.
Previously on MAU: The Slayer
After using a Morphic Adaptation Unit James Stevens becomes trapped in the
form of Faith the rogue Vampire Slayer from the television show Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. She reluctantly joins the 'Agency' to track down another
device to restore her sister Linda, who was left transformed and paralyzed
in the body of a boy named John. At the end of the last episode
James/Faith manages to get her hands on an active Unit, but is betrayed by
Agent K, who has been manipulating since shortly after her transformation.
Tranquilized as she is attempting to use the Unit to return her sister
Linda to normal, Faith wakes up to discover she is now in a high security
mental hospital, where she quickly discovers her Slayer powers are gone
and she is told that she is responsible for her sister's death.
(Author's note! Sorry it has taken me so long to get out this installment
of the Slayer series. A lot has happened over the past year or more,
luckily most was good, but it kept me from writing. I do make references
to several past story character's in this episode, so hopefully it will
make sense to new readers, but for the full impact it is best if you have
read some of the earlier story's. I promise the next one won't be as
complicated. Thanks for reading.)
Prolog
"How's it feel to be a murderer Faithy baby?" Angelus said. His vampiric
features were clear to Faith even in the near darkness of the room. "How
did it feel to kill your sister? Did it feel good? Did she suffer much?
Please tell me she suffered. Don't leave out a single detail."
"Shut up Karen!" Faith moaned covering her ears.
"Yeah, I want to hear every detail about how you killed our sister?" Dan
said with a marry smile and wide-eyed giddiness. "I want to hear how you
killed her. I want to hear how my selfish little brother denied me the
fun of killing her, only so he could have all the fun to himself. Is that
why you put an arrow in my heart and turned me in to a pile of dust?
Because you knew that one-day you would be the one to do it? You selfish
little bitch! And I know why you did it! You did it so that you could be
the hot chick in the family. Oh...and I hear Agent K really gave it to
you! And in more ways than one," Dan said not able to contain his
laughter.
"And she couldn't get enough," Agent K said, his face coming out of the
darkness. "She was a terrible lay, but she was eager. She's got
potential though. Lots and lots of potential."
"Shut up!" Faith screamed.
"If I hadn't locked her up in here, she would probably be sucking my dick
right now. Isn't that right you little whore. You fucking bitches are
all the same."
"We all want the same thing," Darla growled. "James and I grew up
together as kids and now looks at us. We both end up as chicks. Only
SHE's in the nuthouse and I'm dead. Of course I wouldn't be if you hadn't
killed me. You kill everyone who gets closes to you, don't you? Why is
that?"
"Go away Max!" Faith screamed.
"She hasn't killed me," Agent K smirked.
"She didn't kill me either," an attractive blond woman wearing only a g-
string said. "She wanted to, I could see it in her eyes, but thank god
she hated me. If she had liked me even a little, I would be deader than a
can of Spam! But she didn't, so she left me to live out my life as a
stripper. I was supposed to be a starting quarterback for the..."
"Shut up Eric, you whiney little bitch," the blond cheerleader with
vampiric face shrieked! Her face quickly morphed to that of Faith's
sister Linda. "She didn't really like me either, but she killed me. Put
a stake right through my heart. How do you like that?"
"Go away John!" Faith screamed as she clutched her hands to her face in a
vain attempt to chase the images away. "All of you...GO AWAY!" Faith
collapsed to the cushioned floor of the cell and began to cry.
"Please...please go away," she whispered
"Oh, look at that...she's begging," Angelus cooed.
"Yeah, she begged like that when I gave it to her!" Agent K whispered into
her ear.
"Come on little brother...hold it together," Dan mocked. "Only
what...three more weeks in solitary, then you can go back to you happy
carefree life as a mental patient. See...you have something to look
forward to...but until then, we'll be here to keep you company."
"Go away, go away," Faith sobbed in the darkness. "Please go away."
End Prolog
Faith stood in the doorway of the 'socialization room' feeling as if her
heart might explode. She couldn't stop her right hand from twitching
spasmodically as she looked out at the familiar faces of the mental
patients that she had come to know over the last six months.
"I have to get out of here," Faith thought as she turned to head back
towards her room, but Roscoe the orderly stood in her way blocking the
door.
"Come on sweet cheeks...go play nice, nice with all the other girls," he
said looking her up and down. A groping swat on her ass sent Faith moving
forward into the room and a solid metal door shut behind her. Faith jumped
at the sound of the slamming of the door and nervously looked around the
room.
"Well looky ya all, looks like we gots the Slayer back with us," Little M
said with a laugh. "So we gonna works us out a deal, huh 'James'?"
Faith felt her cheeks redden as the various 'patients' of the ward looked
over at her. Early after her arrive at the institution the Warden reveled
all of her 'crimes' and 'psychosis's' in the guise of treatment. Now
everyone in the institution knew her as Tina Millsap the nut-job who had
plastic surgery to look like Eliza Dushku because she thought she had the
powers of a Slayer. They also knew her as the wacho who believed she had
once been a man named James, but had been changed in to her new female
body by some strange alien phone booth. Also that she had killed her
psychiatrist and a paraplegic boy in the hospital, among others. Having
the reputation of killing a psychiatrist made her unpopular with the staff
and guards, and having killed a paraplegic boy made her unpopular with the
inmates. Faith headed for a lone chair that was some what away from the
others.
"You knows you don't have no choice but to be one of my girls Tina,"
Little M said as Faith headed towards the chair. You know that sweet ass
of yours is just goin' to waste and wit' out me to broker no deals for
you, pretty soon the guards wilt be taken what they wants and you be
gettin' nothin' for it. So you best figure out whats best for you, or if
not, you might finds yourself back in solitary for another month or two.
And this time you would be fighting off more den da rats."
Faith sickened at the thought of being locked back in the near endless
darkness. She knew if she ended up back in that room she would surly go
mad. Faith had been so shaken by the thought of returning to solitary,
that she hadn't even noticed that Little M had moved and now stood in
front of her. Faith gasped.
"Come on movie star, are you's gonna be one of my bitches or am I going to
have to lay another heeping of hurt on you," Little M said glaring up at
Faith.
Faith fearfully looked down at Little M. Faith could only guess at her
ancestry, thinking she might be part Jamaican, part French and part
pitbull. She stood just about five feet tall and appeared slight of
build, but she was brutally cruel. She had been a prostitute and had been
beaten by a 'Jon', so she spent the next few months taking overly willing
'customers' back to various hotel rooms, goading them into letting her tie
then up, then she would ever so slow remove digits from there various
limbs with a rusty box-cutter. She eventually got tired of the box cutter
and just started biting off fingers, toes and then finally...other organs.
This eventually led to her capture. The gaudy steel front-tooth she had
as a result of her original beating, being the thing that led to her
arrest and conviction.
"Now I'ms ah gonna set up an appointment with you and one of dah orderlys!
You be nice to dem, give'm a little blow-blow, and den he gets me a little
recreational medications and some other finnerys."
"No," Faith whispered looking down.
"What'd ya say bitch?" M glowered.
"I'm not doing that," Faith said resolutely looking Little M in the face.
"Trudy!" M barked.
A giant Samoan woman with long, matted and tangled black hair, stood up
from the couch. Trudy had been a ward of the state for nearly twenty
years. She never spoke and only ever seemed to hear, or at least
acknowledge, Little M's commands. She stood slightly over six feet tall
and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Her dull eyes glanced over at
Little M and she lumbered towards her. Keri, the only willing girl in
Little M's 'stable', followed her closely. She had once probably been a
pretty blond, but time and extended heroin use gave her a hard edge and a
somewhat 'used up' appearance. She was still eager to please, but had a
nasty habit of cutting up girls that she felt were pretty than her. Little
M kept her in line for the most part, at least when it came to 'her
girls', the others she would often send Keri to de-beautify to remove as
competition or as an incentive to work for her.
"Please M, I don't want any trouble. I just want to be left alone," Faith
said as she took a step back as she saw Trudy and Keri approaching. The
tremor in her right hand shock mercilessly, as she glanced behind her
looking for the guard that she had seen when she had first come in, but he
had now conveniently disappeared.
Faith turned to look back, when she suddenly found herself laying on the
floor with her ears ringing and blood running from her nose. Stunned, she
looked up at Trudy and Little M standing over her, a sinister sneer on M's
face.
"Make da bitch cry Trudy," M said as she handed Keri a make shift blade
fashioned from a broken safety razor fastened to a toothbrush handle.
"When she be done, you can cuts her on one side of da face, and I mean
only one side this time. And don't you be taken out one of her eyes dis
time neither. Once she knows I da boss, I still want her pretty enough to
be of use."
Faith's right eye slowly opened and all she could do was stare up at the
phosphorescent light above her bed in the prison infirmary. Her left eye
had been swollen shut and a large bandage covered her check on the right
side of her face. Every breath was still a labored chore, but she managed
to lean her head a little forward to look around the room.
A blond woman in a prison uniform had her back to her, but gasped in
surprise as she turned and saw Faith looking at her.
"You ok? Of course you're not, just look at you," she said.
Faith stared at the painfully beautiful blond woman and realized that she
knew her.
"Walter Greenleaf?" Faith whispered in recognition of the body of Christy
St. Claire. She and Agent K had meet her in the police station when they
were following up the report of an active MAU device and found that she
was really a multi-billionaire named Walter Greenleaf.
The woman stared at Faith in shock. "How did you know..."
"I'm Faith," Faith coughed. "We meet at the police station when..."
"That was you?" She said as her shocked expression quickly darkened as she
looked down studying Faith's swollen face. "Do you have any idea what I
have been through since then? I thought you were going to help me."
"Look at me. I can't even help myself right now."
Faith learned from Walter that he had been shipped of to this asylum after
she and Agent K had left the police station and 'she' had been here ever
since. At first he had tried to convince anyone that would listen that he
was really Walter Greenleaf, but no matter how much information he came up
with about his life, no one was willing to believe that this beautiful
woman was really a six foot five, over weight, balding man. He eventually
realized that he had to accept that he was now Christy, but even though he
now clammed to be her, the doctors were still holding him for long term
observation.
"Lucky for me Christy had been studying to be a nurse at one time, so that
when I arrived here I got placed in the infirmary and haven't had to spend
any time with the general prison population."
Faith went on to explain to Walter her story, how she too was a man named
James, about being turned into Faith the Vampire Slayer, her joining with
the Agency, her Sister's transformation and everything. Even about the
bank robbery, Agent K's betrayal and her waking up here without any of her
powers.
"So you used to be a guy too?"
"Yeah and I guess were both in here because of Kyle...a.k.a. Agent K."
Faith said bitterly.
"Listen," Walter whispered leaning in close to Faith as a long strand of
Christy's blond hair fell in front of his now stunningly beautiful face.
Walter routinely brushed the stand of hair out of his face and hooked it
behind his ear. "I have some numbered Swiss bank accounts that I can
access even in this body, so if you help me escape, I will make it worth
your while."
"But why me?"
"Simple. First my plan is going to need two people to work, I was just
about desperate enough to try it out on my own, but I think I will get
caught if I don't have help. And second and more importantly, you know
who I really am and I need that more than anything else. I've been living
the lie that I am really Christy for so long that I was starting to
believe it. I know who I am, but with the impossibility of a weird alien
body transforming devices and spending all this time in a mental
institution undergoing treatment, I was beginning to think that I might
really have been Christy St. Claire and that I, or she, had had a mental
break down."
"You're not crazy Walter...neither of us our...and we are going to get out
of here!"
Two days later
"I can't believe it?" Walter gasped as he removed the bandage from Faith's
face.
"Is it bad?" Faith said, knowing that she would now being caring the
disfiguring scar where Keri had cut her on the cheek for the rest of her
life. "Is it?"
"There's not a mark there?" Walter finally said handing Faith the mirror.
"It's like you were never cut. All of your injury's have healed in
practically no time."
Faith/James looked into the familiar reflection of the face of the actress
Eliza Dushku. Faith brought her hand up to her cheek and touched it.
"That's amazing," she whispered. "I was sure I was going to have a scar.
Even in that 'alternate wish universe episode' Buffy had a scar on her
face, why don't I have one?"
"I don't know." Walter said. "But I saw the wound when you came in here
with and there is no way it could have healed this quickly and without a
scar."
"That brings up two important things to think about," James said sitting
up right in bed. "First, when I used the MAU to create this body, the
machine must have taken and interpreted more from my mind than just the
abilities of Faith the vampire slayer."
"What do you mean?" Walter asked.
"I'm not exactly sure at the moment, but secondly and more importantly, if
my heighten Slayer healing is still working, then I haven't lost my Slayer
powers. They're somehow being suppressed. Drugs!"
"What?"
"In an episode of Buffy, she lost her powers when she was drugged. Am I
being drugged?"
"No. At least I don't think so. I have seen your chart and you aren't on
anything out of the usual."
"Well, maybe my abilities are being surprised in another way, but at least
I know they are still there."
"We do have a problem now," Walter said worriedly.
"What's that?"
"With you healed like this, you'll be out of the infirmary by tomorrow and
we can't work the plan until Sunday and that's five days from now."
"Look, I'll find someway back to the infirmary by Sunday and we'll get out
of here then."
The next day
Agent K sat in the filthy waiting room admiring his handiwork. He had
looked long and hard to find an institution with all the right qualities
to house any transformerees that he deemed worthy of this fate. A brutal
staff that was used to dealing with dangerous inmates in a nearly inhuman
manner was important, but also their needed to be a questionable element
of abuse, both from the other patients as well as the staff, so he was
overjoyed when he found this place. Through his connections he made
certain that this institution wasn't shutdown by some governmental do-
gooder. Now Faith was here and he wanted her to suffer more than any
other person that he had banished here before had ever suffered.
He looked down at the small palm-pilot sized device in his hand and
smiled. The screen read 'device operation one-hundred percent' and below
that a red dot moved slow across the screen towards the center. A small
readout read '10 yards', which was quickly reduced to 9, then 8, until it
got to 5 then stopped. The door in front of Agent K opened an orderly
lead Faith into the room. Faith's eyes went wide when she saw K sitting
on the other side of the bulletproof glass of the visiting room. Faith
turned to leave, but the orderly pushed her forward, then he left the
room. Faith stood staring at K who just picked up the receiver to the
phone and smiled. Faith finally sat down and picked up the other phone
receiver so that they could talk.
"Hey sweet heart," Agent K cooed.
"What the fuck do you want? No, forget that, what the fucked did you do
to me?" Faith said.
"Well, I am pretty sure I made you cum at least twice, but it might have
been three times."
Faith reddened, partially from embarrassment, but mostly from anger.
"Shut up! You know what I mean, my slayer powers."
"Oh that! Let's just say we found a way to suppress them and make you a
normal girl." Agent K leaned forward with a sinister grin. "You know, I
could arrange for us to have a conjugal visit. I know how much you
enjoyed are last go around, want to go for seconds?"
"Never!" Faith spat venomously. Anger flared within Faith both for the
hatred she felt for Agent K and also anger at herself for the small part
of her that wanted to accept his proposal. "What do you want?" Faith
spat.
"I just want to check on your mental health."
"What are you talking about?"
"I just want to see that you still know that you are James transformed and
not some crazy delusional skirt. You know that right?"
Faith just glared at Agent K.
"Of course you do. Good. See when you interfered with me using the
device, I had thought to kill you, but then realized your suffering would
be over to quickly. Now you will spend the rest of your life locked up in
this asylum, every day being told you are some chick named Tina Millsap.
Now, as long as you remember who you are and are suffering with this
existence, then you will remain alive. IF I ever come here and you really
think you are Tina, then I will end you miserable life before the
sunsets."
"What the hell are you talking about you psychopath?" Faith said staring
at K.
"In the past, especially in asylum situations, people who have used the
devices have come to question their own sanity and eventually believe that
they are who they appear to be. I don't want you to escape into a
delusion."
"So what were you going to do to yourself with the device?" Faith asked.
"Tell you what," Agent K said as he stood. "Ask me again the next time
I'm here. I'll be seeing you around. Oh and James...don't drop the
soap," he said with a laugh as he walked out the door.
Two days later
"I can't believe I am really going to do this, but this will be the
quickest way back to the infirmary...if I don't end up in the morgue,"
Faith thought as she picked up the mop handle, the tremor in her right
hand still shook, but she tried to will it away to no avail. Little M had
just made another one of her propositions and Faith had turned her down,
and now she was calling for Trudy. Faith knew she had to act while her
courage still held, so she turned and took a few steps forward and swung
the mop handle at the unsuspecting Little M, who had turned to Trudy.
Little M was screaming at Trudy, telling her what a 'cunt faced whore' she
was, when the mop handle connected with her elbow. She could feel the
snap and a searing pain firing up her arm, and before she could even
scream a second blow struck her in the knee knocking her to the floor. She
looked up and saw Faith standing over her.
"You fuckin' bitch!" M wheezed through the pain. "Trudy! Fuckin' kill
the cunt!"
Faith's eyes snapped up to Trudy, the mop handle still held tightly in her
hands, but was surprised by the giant woman's expression. Instead of
anger, or rage, or even her typical cold indifferent stare, Faith saw a
look of confusion and uncertainty.
A blow to the back of her head the knocked Faith to her knees. Stars
filled her vision and she felt a wave of nausea pass over her. She
realized that the mop handle had slipped from her hands and she tried to
reach for it, but felt a foot kick her in the side, knocking the breath
from her lungs. She rolled to her back as Keri dropped down on top of
her, raining down punches. She tried to block them as best she could, but
Keri was crazed. Finally Keri leaned forward, possibly to bite her, so
that she could tear off a piece of Faith's face with her teeth, but Faith
took the opportunity to flip Keri off of her. She staggered to her feet,
blood running down her nose, when Little M hit her across the back with
the mop handle, dropping her back to the ground.
"Trudy, beat da life out of da bitch!" M said staggering back as she
dropped the mop handle and cradled her elbow.
Trudy stepped up to the groaning Faith and without hesitation began
pounding her fists into her mercilessly. Faith tried to move, to escape,
but was pinned and felt the last flicker of consciousness leaving her as
the orderly's pulled Trudy off of her.
The Next day
"You are such a fucking genius, aren't you James?" Angelus laughed in the
darkness of the padded room.
"That's my brother, er uh sister, whatever. Not the brightest bulb in the
bunch," Dan laughed. "One month of solitary confinement for fighting. HA
HA HA!"
"And you got the shit beat out of you for nothing!" Laughed Angelus.
"Guess you won't be escaping anytime soon, huh sexy?" The ghostly
apparition of Agent K smiled from the darkness. "Bet the only reason she
wanted to escape, was because she had an inch and wanted to find me so
that I could scratch it for her, isn't that right Faithy baby?"
"Shut up you fucking, piece of..."
"Wow James, you kiss you mother with that mouth?" The vampiric face of
Darla said appearing in the darkness. "Probably not though, since they
think your dead, like all of their kids."
"Shut up Max!" Faith hissed. "All of you shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut
up!"
A chorus of laughter erupted from all around her in the darkness as a sea
of familiar faces appeared around her.
"I can't take this!" she sobbed. "Not for a month, not for a month. Just
let me die."
The laughter only grew lauder, but even in her torment, Faith noticed a
strange translucent, illumination forming in the center of the darkness.
Slowly the light began to take shape and Faith squinted her eyes at the
sudden brilliance in the room. One eye was nearly swollen shut from the
beating Trudy had given her, but she managed to focus on the form before
her. She nearly groaned when she saw it was the human version of Darla,
but the strange glowing light gave Faith a feeling of reassurance. Wearing
a long, flowing gossamer dress, she smiled down at Faith and said, "You
dork! What kind of a mess have you gotten yourself into this time."
Screams bellowed forth from the faces and figures all around them in the
darkness.
"James is are plaything! Get out of here bitch!" the dark vampiric visage
of Darla said racing from the darkness to attach.
"Hey James, watch this," the light Darla said as the dark figure tried to
attack her. The instant it touched her it burst into white flames, let
out a brief scream and was gone.
"Alright, who's next? One at a time or all at once, it doesn't matter, I
can take you all down," she said with a grin.
The figures in the darkness all howled in anger, but slowly faded further
and further into the shadows until they vanished completely.
"I swear James, what would you do without me?" Darla said sitting down
next to him.
"Max?" Faith finally was able to say. "I don't understand? What's
happening...Is that really you?"
"Well, I think I am really me, but it's hard to say. I know I am here as
part of you precognitive slayer power, but I think there is more to me
than just that. I think I might also be an embodiment of your hope, your
destiny, maybe of all of the good things you have inside of you, but that
sounds a little bit lame, so lets just say I am here to keep you from
losing your marbles."
"What's the point, Walter will probably be long gone, so as soon as I get
out of here Little M will kill me for sure."
"Faith, you still have a destiny. Remember the musical dream? The eve of
destruction! The future that Agent B showed you will come to pass and
very soon, unless you stop it."
"Those man-sized amoeba things?" Faith said remembering the dream.
"Give the man...uh, lady a prize," Max said. "Now you have to listen! I
have come here to warn you. Something is about to happen, something
horrible and I wish there was something I could do to stop it, but I
can't. It's going to happen, but later you will be given a choice and you
have to let him live."
"What do you mean let him live, what's going to happen?" Faith said
leaning forward.
"I can't say for certain, the future isn't exactly clear, but if you kill
him, no matter how much he deserves it, it will led to your death! If you
let him live, I see a future where you will be able to return to you own
body and live a normal life."
"I can't go back to being me," James said despondently. "Dan and...Linda
are dead...I killed them. How could I go back?"
"Killed her? You don't know. James Linda is..."
A sudden sound of the lock to the door turning caught both of their
attention.
"It's happening. James listen, I don't have any time left. I won't be
able to come back for a while, but hold on. I am so sorry," Max said as
he faded from sight.
One of the prison guards, officer Blake, stood in the doorway and smiled
down at Faith as he stepped inside the padded room.
"Hey there beautiful," he said as the door started to close.
"You have thirty minutes man!" a voice said from the other side of the
door. "Be sure to wear a condom this time man, we can't keep having
'accidents' to patients to cover up, you not wrapping up."
"You should get it on this while she still has a pulse. Little M and her
gang will be out for her blood when she gets out of here. She won't last
a day so you don't have to worry about her trying to file any complaints."
"Naw man, I can wait. I like my fish with less wiggle and room
temperature." The man on the outside of the door said.
"You are one sick mother-fucker!"
"What the hell is going on?" Faith said scooting away from the door and
back into the corner as the last light from the door faded away leaving
her alone in the darkness with the prison guard.
Faith could hear the movement in the room, but couldn't see anything in
the darkness. She felt a hand brush against her pant leg and she tried to
pull her leg away, but a hand already firmly held her ankle. She tried to
kick it away with her other leg, but the guard was well experienced with
this reaction and grabbed a hold of her other ankle and dragged her
towards him. She struggled to pull herself free, but within moments he
was on top of her, pulling and tearing apart her clothes. She tried to
fight back, but a fist landed on her swollen eye and she let out a yelp
and fell hard against the padded floor. Groggily she tried to fight back,
but in the end all she could do was let out a scream, which he muffled
with his hand as she cried.
19 days later
Faith wasn't sure exactly when the shadow figures had returned, but she
knew it was sometime after officer Blake's latest visits. She knew it
should have been easy for her to remember how many times he had...visited
her...but she couldn't, she wouldn't let herself put a number it. A
number would only make it that much more real, but it really didn't matter
as this was all just a terrible nightmare. A terrible nightmare where
James was in a woman's body...helpless...in prison, with spooky shadow
characters that would torment him and a guard that would...
"This isn't real," James muttered to himself, but cursed that his dream
voice sounded so feminine. "I'm not really here, I home in bed and
brother...and my sister... and friends are all still alive. This is just
a nightmare."
The shadows roared with laughter.
"I don't know," Angelus laughed. "It looked pretty real to me when that
guard was 'givin' it' you."
"Yeah, you looked like you were really enjoying it," Agent K beamed.
"Maybe not as much as when I had you, but be honest with yourself, you
loved ever minute of it. In fact, I know you are counting the seconds
until the guard comes back for another ride on the Faith express!"
Faith lay silent and numb on the floor of the padded cell. Nothing these
ghosts had to say mattered anymore. She barely registered them at all
now, but in a very real way she was glad they had returned. Even though
they were now just white noise to her, they gave her a distraction from
dwelling on what Blake had done to her. She was grateful for the ghost's
chatter, she knew if they weren't around then the thoughts of what Blake
had done to her...would have driven her mad.
"I should have drowned you when I had the chance..." Dan started to say
when the faint translucent illumination began glowing in the center of the
room. The shadow figures all screamed and began to fade back into the
darkness as the form of Darla took shape in the light.
Faith snapped up as the voices grew more distant. "NO!" she screamed.
"Don't leave me alone, not here, not like this! I need you!"
"James?" Max said in Darla's voice. "Its alright, I'm here."
Faith looked at the beautiful glowing woman in the flowing gossamer dress
and backed away from her. Faith had backed herself into the corner and
couldn't back any further away. She had grown to fear the light...there
was light when the door opened and Blake would come in...then there was
light afterwards when the door opened and he left. Light meant pain and
shame! And now the light was back, it wasn't Blake this time, but she
still was ashamed. It was then that Faith noticed that Darla's brilliant
glow had faded from what it had been before. Her light wasn't as bright
and Faith was grateful for it.
"Why did you do that?" Faith sobbed. "Why did you make them go away?
They're all I have."
"No they aren't James! You have to listen to me. You still have..."
"I want you to leave!" James spat. "There is no room for something like
you in this nightmare."
"James this isn't a nightmare, this is all real."
"No it isn't!" James said venomously. "This is all some fucked up dream
and I am going to wake up soon. Now go away bitch!"
Darla's glow continued to fade as she pleaded with Faith.
"You have to listen, they're so many things I need to tell you."
"You have nothing to tell me. Now get out!" Faith said lunging at Darla
and in a flash she was gone.
Faith lay on the floor in the darkness sobbing.
"It's only a dream, it's only a dream, it's only a dream..."
"I have to say I am impressed," Angelus said appearing in the darkness.
"You are either stupider or crazier than I thought."
"Chasing away the light to embrace the darkness?" John in the form of his
sister said. "You have taken you're first step into a larger world."
The shadows continued their praises and taunts, but Faith just lay on the
floor motionless and numb, without even registering what they were saying,
but in the darkness a small smile of contentment spread across her lips.
11 days later
Faith once again stood in the doorway of the 'socialization room', the
tremor in her right hand continued to spasm uncontrollably as she scanned
the room for Little M, Trudy or Keri. She knew it was only a matter of
time before they came after her and she understood from Blake's visits
that the guards and orderlies were just going to let them have her.
"Will this nightmare even end?" Faith whispered to herself. "If I do get
killed, I'll just wake up. But what if this is like one of those
Nightmare on Elm Street type things where if I die in my dreams, I really
will die? Or what if I really am just some crazy girl named Tina Millsap
and don't have sense enough to know all of this is real?"
Faith breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that none of Little M's gang
was in the socialization room, but she knew she couldn't avoid them
forever.
"I wish Agent K would show up. He wouldn't let them hurt me," Faith
muttered, but then stopped in disgust. "Have I really fallen so far that
I would wish that the bastard that put me in here, would come to save me?
That's it! My name is James Stevens! I used some stupid alien machine to
give myself this body and now I am about to be killed unless I can get out
of here. Maybe I am crazy, but as insane as it sounds, that is the only
reality that makes any sense to me."
Faith froze when he recognized the beautiful form of Christy St. Claire
sitting in a chair across the room. In her haste to see M's people, she
hadn't noticed her, but now she made a beeline straight towards Walter.
"Christy?" Faith said as she approached the blond, but took a step back
when she saw the grotesque scar on her right cheek.
"This is all your fault?" she said looking up at Faith, tears welling up
in her eyes. "When I heard you were in solitary, I tried to get out on my
own...and got caught. Next thing I know I ended up here."
"Little M?" Faith said looking at the scar.
"Keri was enraged the second I entered the ward. I had barely turned down
Little M's proposal, when Keri was on top of me, giving me this," she said
touching the scar.
"God Walter, I am sorry," Faith said.
"Don't call me that. My name is Christy now and I just have to live with
it until I can get released. Little M doesn't seem much interested in me
now that I have this and I just want to be left alone."
"Wal...Christy what about escaping? This isn't like prison where you do
your time and go, this is a mad house and they can keep you in here
forever."
Christy looked around the room nervously.
"Don't you think I know that, but I got caught and ended up with this, if
I try again, things could get even worse."
"The plan will still work, even with both of us in here, but we have to
stick together."
Christy again looked nervously at a nearby orderly.
"Let's go somewhere else and talk about this," she said getting up and
heading over to the guard, who buzzed them out of the room so that they
could go to the dormitory.
"Once we get out of here, you can get some plastic surgery to fix that
scar Christy, but that just a short term solution. Once we get our hands
on another one of those devices, then you can go back to being yourself
and I can..."
"Be dead!" Little M said stepping out of a doorway from behind Faith.
Faith spun around to see the fierce hatred burning in the tiny woman's
eyes. Behind her Faith saw the towering figure of Trudy glaring down at
her.
"Christy, we got to get out of..." Faith was saying when she got blindside
by Keri, who had snuck up behind her. Faith collapsed to her knees and
tried to rise again, but Trudy knocked her vertical with a blow to the
back of the head. Faith fought to keep her vision from fading to black
and managed to remain conscious, although the room continued to spin.
"Nice work Christy," M said walking up to Walter. "You done a find job of
leadin' da sheep to da slaugtr."
"So I don't have to...do that thing for the orderly's anymore. The
blowjobs." Christy said briefly glancing down at Faith and then looking
back to M."
"Now da you tink I would ever lie to one of my girls?" Little M said with
an overly large grin that showed off her gaudy steel tooth. "Now you had
better gets a goin', unless you wants to see the fun?"
Christy gave one last look at Faith and the hurriedly headed back to the
socialization room.
"OK bitch, I gots somethin' special in minds for you. Trudy, you brings
the cunt along."
Trudy grabbed Faith by the hair and lumbered behind Little M, who had
started off down the hall. Faith grabbed onto Trudy's hands and held on
as best she could...it felt like her hair was about to tear loose from her
skull, but Keri who followed behind, gave her a quick kick in the ribs.
Faith let out a yelp of pain and lost her hold. Frantically she grabbed a
hold of Trudy's hands once again as she was dragged into the laundry room.
"Dunks her in here," M commanded Trudy.
Faith struggled helplessly as she felt herself lifted like a rag doll by
her hair up off the floor. She struggled, clawing at Trudy's wrists as
her feet left the floor before her head was dunked into a tub of water.
Frantically she struggled to pull herself free as she felt her lungs begin
to ache for air.
"This is how I am going to die," flashed through Faith's mind as she was
pulled up out of the water and gasped for air. Little M punched her in
the stomach and Faith doubled over and gasped, but before she could take
another breath, her head was again under the water. She scratched at
Trudy's wrists, but the enormous woman refused to release her. Faith
thrashed helplessly to no avail, when she felt herself being pulled up and
she gasped for a breath fearing she would be dunked back under the water,
but instead she was being dragged over to the industrial strength washer
and dryers.
"Nows I would loves to tortures you all days long bitch, but the guards
won't be staying aways forever, but I'ves got an understanding with dems
and they knows I will makes this looks like you just couldn'ts go on, so
you gone and killed yourselfs. Likes to know hows you kill yourselfs? I
bets you do!" M said smiling gloriously.
"M don't do this," Faith gasped, but was knocked back when Keri hit her
across the face.
M smiled as she poured a bucket of water on ground by one of the dryers.
She tossed the bucket aside then reached for a thick black cable that they
had loosened from back of one of the dryers earlier.
"Der be enough power in dis here cable to light yous up like a Christmas
tree, but don't worries, you won't dies right off, it will still takes you
a minute. It always takes a minute," she laughed.
Faith tried to pull free from Trudy, but the large woman walloped the back
of her skull with her fist and Faith collapsed into the puddle of water in
front of the dryer. Faith tried to scramble out of the water, when she
looked up to see Little M dropping the cable towards her. Reflexively
Faith reached out to bat the cable away, but as she did so, the arch of
electricity began coursing through her body.
Agent K sat in a hotel room some twelve hundred miles away looking over a
file on the latest reported user of one of the alien devices.
"How many Lindsay Lohan's does the world need," he mused.
Without warning the small palm-pilot sized device he always kept with him
started to beep menacingly. Tossing the file aside he frantically felt in
his coat pocket for the device. Pulling it out, he read the readout and
sprang to his feet towards the door, already reaching for his cell phone
to makes some calls.
The screen read: "Overload!!!!!!! Complete system failure! Suppression
0%, Global Positioning 0%, Auto Repair System Offline.
James felt nothing! No fear, no hatred, not even a tinge of regret, but
when he thought about it, it wasn't really nothing he was feeling, but
instead it was a sense of complete and utter peace. He felt like he was
floating....he was floating....disembodied. He knew he should be afraid,
but he couldn't seem to feel that emotion. He looked down and saw his
body...no not his body, but it was the body he had been living in since he
had used the Morphic Adaptation Unit to change it. It was Faith's body,
his body...and he knew it was about to die. Time seemed frozen as the
electricity arched from the power cable into her body. James looked down
at this body, his body, with no more emotion than one would feel as the
credits rolled by at the end of a movie. He saw the figures of M, Trudy
and Keri standing around, but no longer cared as he turned to move onward,
away from the life that he had known. A bright, glowing, warm light
invited him to come home again and as he moved towards the light James
felt that he was now truly free...truly safe. James reached out to touch
the light, but suddenly felt himself being drawn backwards. Something at
the pit of his being was pulling him away from the light, denying him the
rest that he so longed for. James turned around to see that he was fly
headlong towards his body, back towards the pain, back towards his life
and now all he knew was one thing....FEAR.
Faith let out a long scream as the electricity arched from the power cable
ran through her body. Miraculously a circuit breaker blew and ceased the
flow of the electrical current. The now impotent power cable fell to the
floor as the lights in the room faded to darkness.
The three women stood dumbfounded staring at Faith as the emergency lights
kicked on. Faith body convulsed as it collapsed to the floor with a thud.
"Alrighty den!" M said looking down at Faith. "The dam power went out,
Keri fuckin finish da bitch."
Keri moved forward with the razorblade ready to cut Faith one last time.
"Makes it look like she did it to her self," M hissed as Keri moved
closer.
"Right M," she said gleefully.
She picked up one of Faith's wrists and held in tightly in her grasp. "One
quick cut here and she will just be another suicide...just like the
others," Keri said as she brought the razor down in her other hand. "Time
to die bitch."
M watched eagerly as the familiar scene was being played out when suddenly
Keri was yanked off of her feet. Two loud snaps echoed down the
cinderblock hallway, followed by a loud scream. Keri's unconscious body
slammed against an adjacent wall, now with both of her arms broken and
mangled to the point where she would never even be able to feed herself
with them, let alone hold a blade to do another person harm.
M watched as Keri's body flew across the room, then turned to the figure
that arose from the shadows of the emergency lights. A tinge of smoke
floated off of her and the air smelled of ozone, but in the darkness M
could see a smile on the figures face.
"I think the rules just changed," Faith said looking down at her now
steady hands, as she felt complete once more.
"Whats are you waitin' for Trudy? Kill dat bitch!" M snapped.
Trudy lumbered forward towards Faith who stood her ground. She swung down
at the petit young woman, who in a flash caught Trudy's fist in her hand
and began to squeeze. Pain flooded Trudy's simple mind, but she refused
to scream as she threw her other fist at the woman's head. Faith caught
this fist in her other hand and began to squeeze if too. Trudy tried to
fight the pain, but it was unbearable. Her Momma had told her never to
cry out when she had beaten her and Trudy learned never to cry, no matter
how much pain her mother inflicted on her, but now she just couldn't take
it anymore.
"Momma please stop hurting me!" Trudy cried as she fell to her knees, but
as soon as she had said 'Momma please' the pain had stopped.
Faith stood looking at the enormous, but simple-minded woman, who began
blubbering like a child, tears streamed down her face.
"I'm sorry Momma...I won't do it again....I'll be a good girl now," Trudy
cried as she wrapped her arms around Faith and sobbed.
Faith slowly brought her arms up around Trudy and embraced her. "It's ok
baby...'Momma' won't ever hurt you again. You're safe now."
"Thank you Momma," Trudy cried.
"You's goin die bitch!" M said swinging Keri's razor blade towards Faith's
throat.
Without a thought Faith caught M's wrist and tossed her to the other side
of the room like a rag doll, where she landed with a splash in a puddle of
water. M tried to rise to her feet, but was only able to get to the palms
of her hands when the power kicked back on. She barely had time to
realize that the power cable was in the water with her before the charge
of electricity forced the life from her body.
"Come on Trudy, let's get out of her," Faith said looking over as the
electricity arced from the power cable to M's steel front teeth.
"OK Momma," Trudy said as Faith led her from the room.
Faith walked down the long corridor back towards the socialization room.
In the shadows of the doorways she could see the ghosts of her pasts.
"Go get'em Faithy," Angelus sang cheerfully.
"Pay backs going to be a bitch," Agent K mused. "Now go get the bastard,
you dirty little bitch."
Faith leading Trudy by her hand, walked onward without acknowledging the
voices.
"Go on little 'Brother', time to do what you do best," Dan said from the
shadow in the doorway. "Make me proud."
The figures in the shadows retracted back into the darkness as the barely
illuminated figure of Darla appeared in front of Faith.
"James you have your powers back now...you have to escape! You have to go
now!" Darla said weakly.
"I've got something I need to take care of first," Faith said coldly and
without emotion.
"James I know what you want to do, but you can't. The 'eve of
destruction' from you prophecy is almost here and you have to go stop it.
But at this moment it's the fate of the world that hangs in the balance
James...and if you go and escape now you can return to your old life, but
if you do this thing it will set in motion events that will lead to your
death."
Faith stopped in front of the doorway to the socialization room.
"Trudy...I want you to wait here...can you do that for me?" Faith said
seating the large woman down on a chair.
"She Momma," she said quietly.
"That's a good girl."
Faith turned to open the door, but Darla was standing in her way. "James
did you hear what I said, if you do this, then you will die."
"You know what! I really couldn't careless," Faith said as she walked
through the figure of Darla and opened the door.
Prison guard Grant Blake raced down the hallway at a full run, terrified
for his life. Sirens blasted through the PA system and alarm bells rang
as he reached the security gate. Four prison guards caught Blake as he
scrambled towards the exit door.
"Blake! What's going on? How many are there?" one of the guards said.
"Let me go dammit! She's going to kill me," Blake said as he tried to
pull himself free.
"Who?"
"That Tammy bitch! She was tossing around Orderly's like they were
nothing. Let me go," he said pulling himself free and bolting to the
security gate. Frantically he pulled out his key ring and unlocked the
first door of the gate. The reinforced steel and Plexiglas door swung
shut behind him. He was now in no mans land, the hallway between the
prison and outside world. The only way out of this short corridor for him
now was for the guard on the other side to 'buzz' the door open, which
would only work once the first door had closed. This safety precaution
had caught more than one inmate who thought they could escape with a
stolen set of keys. Blake breathed a sigh as he heard the buzzing sound
coming from the door and quickly rushed through it, slamming it behind
him.
He could barely catch his breath and his heart was pounding like a
jackhammer, but he let out a laugh, a laugh that only those who barely
managed to dodge death could understand. He turned to look back the way
he had just come and the laugh died in his throat. It was like something
out a nightmare and he wanted to scream, but his newfound terror wouldn't
allow him to make a sound. It had only been a few seconds, but now the
four guards lay unconscious on the floor and on the other side of the two
doors was that damned girl. Blood ran down her nose, where a guard had
managed to land a lucky punch. She looked at him coldly...
expressionless... her eyes looked at him and looked through him at the
same time. Then she smiled. To Blake's mind it was the most terrifying
thing he had ever seen, but then she held up a set of keys and then he
smiled back.
Faith turned the key in the lock and entered the corridor. Walking
towards the next door she heard the other door slam shut behind her. She
looked down at the door in front of her and saw there was no keyhole, no
way from this side of the door to unlock it.
"You fucking stupid cunt!" Blake laughed from the other side of the door,
a clear look of relief on his face. "There's no way out for you now!"
Faith dropped the keys to the floor and looked up at the door sizing it
up. She looked forward at Blake, tilted her head slightly to the side and
smiled coldly.
Blake just managed to leap out of the way of the door as it flew off of
its hinges from Faith's snap kick.
Blake scrambled to his feet and was stumbling forward in a crazed attempt
to get away from the woman when he felt something grab the back of his
collar and yank him back.
Faith spun officer Blake around and slammed him against the wall.
"Let go of me you crazy bitch!" he gasped trying to pull himself free.
From the corner of her eye Faith saw moment and brought her hand up to
catch the nightstick of the officer who had been operating the security
door. She yanked it out of his hand and with in a second the guard was on
the other side of the hallway, unconscious.
She turned back to Blake and faced him. She held the nightstick tightly
in her hand and slowly lifted it above her head, all the while staring up
into his eyes.
"Please don't," Blake begged pitifully.
Faith choked a laugh. "Please don't?" She whispered. She stared at him
coldly. "Please don't!" She hissed. "How many times did I say that to
you when you were...doing those things to me? How many times did I beg
you to stop? How many times did you leave me crying on the floor after
you were done with me? Tell me this...how many times did you rape me,
because I don't know." Faith began to scream. "I lost count!"
"James stop!" Darla's voice said from behind Faith. "James you are not a
murder, don't do this."
"Not a murder?" Faith said turning to face the faded female image of his
friend Max and the embodiment of his hope, now a barely visible specter of
Darla. Her translucent glow practically nonexistent. "I kill all the
time! Countless vampires, that bank robbing terminator, the mind
controlling whatever he was and don't forget my brother Dan. I'm the
Slayer after all."
"Those weren't cold blooded murders and you know it!" the figure of Darla
said. "They weren't even human."
"Of course we were!" Dan's voice said as his shadowy form appeared in the
hallway along with that of several other figures.
"We were all human and she killed us," Angelus said, stepping up to Darla
boldly.
"But James killed you in self defense and if he hadn't you all would have
went on to kill countless others."
"Would all of you shut up!" Faith screamed, looking at all of the figures
around her.
"James listen to me," the Darla figure pleaded. "I was your best friend
and I know that you are a good person and you don't have murder in your
heart. Now put the night stick down."
Faith looked at the man in front of her and up at the nightstick in her
hand. She tossed the nightstick aside and turned to see Darla's
illumination grow slightly stronger.
"You fucking bitch," Office Blake said hitting Faith across the face,
catching her unaware and staggering her back a step. Blake turned to run,
but Faith instantly spun him around into a chokehold, locking both her
arms around his neck.
"Just you kill da fuck and lets gets goin'" M's voice said as her shadow
form stepped out of the crowd.
"Come on little brother, make me proud," Dan said.
"James don't," Darla screamed.
"Why not!" Faith said coldly. "This guy deserves to die more than any of
the others."
"Maybe he does, but the 'eve of destruction' is coming and if you do this,
it will only lead to you dying."
"Jesus Max, don't you get it, I don't care anymore!"
"Yes you do James," Darla said.
"No Max, I really don't." Faith said noticing, but not caring that the
illumination of Darla's light was almost completely non-existent.
"But you have to save the world James."
"You can see the future, can't you Max?" Faith said looking up at Darla.
"Pieces of it yes," she replied.
"So tell me one thing...if I let this guy live, will he do to other
woman...what he did to me?"
"James you don't understand..."
"Yes or no?" Faith demanded.
Darla hesitated and then whispered, "Yes."
Faith jerked and twisted her arms. A loud CRACK was heard down the
hallway, followed by the sound of officer Blake's dead body hitting the
floor.
"Oh God James, what have you done?" Darla said, all illumination gone from
her now and forever.
"What had to be done," Faith said turning and walking towards the exit.
"James there are still things you need to know to save the world," Darla
said fearfully as the shadow figures moved in towards her.
"Save it? I don't plan on saving it. It can burn for all I care," Faith
said opening the doorway to the outside world. "However, until the world
is over run by giant amoebas, I am going to show the world what a truly
dark Slayer is capable of," Faith said turning to look back at Darla. She
watched as the shadow figures fell upon her and tore her apart. Faith
watched in cold, detachment as the last trace of Darla disappeared from
existence. Then she looked callously at the shadow figures standing
around.
"I don't want to see any of you around either. I am done with all of
you." Slowly the shadow figures faded away into nothing, as Faith turned,
walked out the exit and into the darkness of the night.
Epilog
Agent K slide the magazine reflexively in and out of his Glock 19 as he
sat watching the news program in the cheap motel room.
"...the suspect is considered armed and extremely dangerous by local and
federal authorities. The manhunt has garnered nationwide attention after
the shocking footage of the brutal murder of prison guard Raymond
Blake...."
Agent K watched an edited down version of Faith's escape, where it was
explained that she had smuggled in a large does of PSP, which gave her
superhuman strength while she was escaping. Agent K did enjoy making up
plausible cover stories when it was needed and knew this one was
completely believable, after all the camera showed the woman raving and
carrying on a full conversation to a group of people that weren't even
there.
Piecing together the details of what had happened had been easier than K
had thought possible, after questioning Christ St. Claire all the pieces
fell into place. He didn't mind framing 'her' for the smuggling of the
PSP into the hospital and giving it to Faith. She would be locked up for
quiet awhile now.
"...Officer Blake is survived by his wife and three children."
Agent K watched the picture of the perfect Nuclear family on the screen,
with the man in a suit, next to his lovely wife and their three perfectly
adorable children: two girls and a boy. He then watched footage of a
funeral precession rolling down the main street of town, followed by
dozens of mourners.
"...day three of the statewide manhunt continues, still with no leads at
this time. Several local businesses and the police union have contributed
to the reward offered, now bring the total up to 100 thousand dollars for
any information that leads to the apprehension of the fugitive."
Agent K turned off the television.
"Three days and not a sign of her, even with her full Slayer powers,
someone had to have seen her," he said aloud as he nervously slid the
magazine back into the Glock. A small beep sounded from inside his coat
pocket. In the blink of an eye he was holding the small palm-pilot sized
device in his hand that for the last three days had read, "Overload!!!!!!!
Complete system failure! Suppression 0%, Global Positioning 0%, Auto
Repair System Offline." However, now the device blinked, "Reboot! Reboot!
Auto Repair System Online...Suppression 0%, Global Positioning 1%."
Agent K sat staring at the device for almost and hour, until finally it
read, "Suppression 1%, Global Positioning 1%."
He slide the device back in his pocket, picked up his Glock, sliding the
magazine out and in one last time, then slide it into his shoulder holster
and smiled.
"In a week, two at the outside most, I will know exactly where you are
Faith, and you will be completely powerless. Time to stop fucking around
with you and put an end to this. And on the day I come looking for you,
it will be your last!"
Meanwhile two hours away, just outside of Deselma Alabama, David Cohen
enjoyed a moment of pure ecstasy and bliss!
"She was perfect!" he whispered to himself looking down at the bloodied
dead body of the blond high school girl. "She was magnificent. She
lasted so...long. Smart, beautiful...she had such deliciously promising
future. I don't know how I will ever top her," he mused, but then felt
such a sense of regret...not for the life he had taken, for he had taken
sooooo many already. NO, it was that he had finally destroyed the
perfection that he had so long searched for and it left him feeling
suddenly empty. All he could now hope for was a pale repetition of the
bliss that was now already draining from him. Nothing mattered...he no
longer had a reason to live and he hated every living thing for being
there to mock his pain. He sobbed sorrowfully.
"If only I could kill everything!" he cried up to the heavens bitterly
impassioned. His cold blue eyes caught sight of a shooting star
descending to earth. He watched it intently, not wishing on it, for he
considered it silly for someone of his intellect to believe in something
so idiotic, but for some reason he felt drawn to it, like this was somehow
his destiny.
"That looked like it landed just a mile away or so." Without a thought he
headed back over to his van, pausing just a moment over the body of the
dead girl. "You will always be truly special," he said as he brushed a
blond strand of hair off of her face and then gently caressed her cheek.
He then got into the van and started to drive where he had seen the
shooting star impact. Reflexively he pushed in the tape in to the tape
player.
"AND YOU TELL ME, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN MY FRIEND, YOU DON'T
BELIEVE, WE'RE ON THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION..."