The Xander Years, Vol.2

by Jeff Mariotte

  “Gage, your pie chart is looking a lot like solitaire,” Willow said. She leaned closer, took a better look. “With naked ladies on the cards.”

  “What’s your point?” Gage asked.

  “No point.”

  The bell rang. Chairs scuffed back across the floor, students gathered books and headed for the door. Gage moved with them, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of class.

  Principal Snyder, Mr. Flutie’s replacement, pushed inside the classroom door as the students went out. He was short, almost elfin, with a wide, balding head. His gray suit was three-piece, both vest and jacket buttoned.

  He met Gage just inside the doorway. “Nice work in yesterday’s meet, son,” he said. “Now let’s go for it.”

  Gage went around him, out of the room. Willow hesitantly approached the principal.

  “Uh, hi there,” she said. Then added, “Sir.”

  “Rosenberg,” he said. “How’s the class? Everything in order?”

  “Well, actually —”

  “Great,” he interrupted. “I’ve been talking to the board. We’ve been having trouble finding a competent teacher this late in the term. Do you think you can continue subbing through finals?”

  Willow could feel her face breaking into a wide smile. It was so good to be appreciated for the job she was doing. “Oh, sure. I like teaching.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” Mr. Snyder said without a trace of sincerity. “You’re a team player and I like that. A team player wants everyone on the team to succeed. Wants everyone to pass.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” Willow was uncertain where this was going, and uncomfortable with getting there.

  “I understand there’s a problem with Gage Petronzi.”

  Vast relief. “Oh, good, then you know. Well, yeah,” she said. “Besides the behavior problem, he won’t do homework, and his test scores are, well, actually he doesn’t have any test scores since he never shows up when we have —”

  “I’m not interested in any of that,” the principal interrupted again. This was looking like a trend. Or maybe a habit. “I’m interested in why,” he went on, his voice stern, “when this school is on the brink of winning its first state championship in fifteen years, you slap a crucial member of that team with a failing grade that would force his removal. Is this how you show your school spirit?”

  “Yes,” Willow said. “Well, I mean, no. I mean, I’m just trying to grade fairly.”

  “Gage is a champion,” Mr. Snyder insisted. “He’s under more pressure than the other students. And I think we need to cut him some slack.” He headed for the door.

  Now she knew where the conversation had been going, beyond any doubt. And she didn’t like it. “You’re asking me to change his grade?”

  He stopped in his track, swiveled, came back into the room. “I never said any such thing,” he said. His voice was low and deliberate. He stopped directly in front of Willow, almost as if staring her down, or daring her to flinch. “All I’m suggesting is that you recheck your figures. And I think you’ll find a grade more fitting to an athlete of Gage’s stature. Perhaps something in a ‘D.’”

  He left Willow alone in the classroom, her good mood shattered.

  Xander could barely believe what Willow was saying. Actually, he could believe it — Principal Snyder had been around long enough to make his contempt for anyone under the age of thirty well known, that Xander could believe just about anything. But still . . .

  “Just like that?” he asked. “He actually told you to alter his grade?”

  They were coming down from the second floor, Cordelia between them, he and Willow flanking her. Cordy looked, he had to say, terrific in a very short black skirt with a sleeveless white sweater, a couple of black stripes around her midriff.

  “Exactly,” Willow replied, bringing his attention back to the subject at hand. “Except for actually telling me to. But he made it perfectly clear what he wasn’t telling me.”

  They hit the first floor, made a right turn, headed toward class. “That is wrong,” Xander declared. “Big, fat, spanking wrong. It’s a slap in the face to every one of us that studied hard and worked long hours to earn our Ds.”

  Cordelia contributed her own brand of uplifting dialogue to the conversation. “Xander, I know you take pride in being the voice of the common wuss, but the truth is certain people are entitled to special privileges. They’re called winners. That’s the way the world works.”

  He tried to ignore the fact that the girl speaking was also the one he was dating. After all, she was still Cordelia, even if they both had experienced sudden, and recurring, losses of judgment. “And what about that nutty ‘all men are created equal’ thing?”

  “Propaganda spouted out by the ugly and less deserving.”

  “I think that was Lincoln,” Xander offered.

  “Disgusting mole and stupid hat,” Cordy said.

  “Actually,” Willow pointed out, “it was Jefferson.”

  “Kept slaves, remember?”

  Xander was a little surprised by Cordelia’s grasp of American history, but kept that to himself. “You know what really grates my cheese?” he asked. “That Buffy’s not here to share my moral outrage about swim team perks. She’s too busy being one of them.”

  Cameron Walker’s midnight blue Ford Mustang pulled into the school parking lot. Lunch with Cam off-campus had been — well, “interesting” wasn’t exactly the word for it, because it wasn’t. Or, he wasn’t. Maybe “enlightening,” she thought, her mind wandering.

  “I don’t know, a dolphin,” Cameron was saying. Rather, continuing to say, since he had been talking non-stop for basically the entire lunch period. And the thing of it was, she couldn’t remember a single thing he had said. “A dolphin in the ocean. Because, you know, when I’m in the vastness of the ocean, it’s like I’m never alone. You ever hear of a woman named Gertrude Ederle?”

  “No. No, I can’t say that I have, Cam.”

  Her response was pretty much just an opportunity for him to draw a breath. He didn’t actually listen to her. She felt her eyelids getting heavy as he droned on. “First woman to swim the English Channel. Same thing. She would talk to it. She’d carry on entire conversations with it. Sometimes I do that. Once I was out —”

  “Listen, Cam.” She interrupted him, fearing for her sanity if he went on any longer. “Thanks again. I’d forgotten how nice it is to just talk . . . or in my case, listen, without any romantic pressure.”

  “Hey, I’m not about pressure,” he said. “I just want you comfortable.”

  “I’m comfy,” she said. “I’m so comfy I’m nodding off, actually. Which is why —”

  His turn to interrupt. “Are you wearing a bra?” His gaze roamed down the front of her sleeveless top.

  What? she thought. “What?”

  “C’mon,” Cameron said. “I mean, tell me you haven’t been thinking about this ever since last night.”

  Buffy reached for the door handle. “What I’m thinking about is that I should probably get out of here.”

  But Cameron knew the car better than she did, and he punched the electronic door lock button before she got her door open. The locks chunked shut. Her handle didn’t work.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Well, duh. She knew that. She was the Slayer, after all. If being killed by the Master didn’t slow her down, an eager swimmer didn’t have much chance against her. “Oh, it’s not me I’m worried about.”

  Cam, though, seemed to like the sound of that. “You like it rough,” he said, reaching for her.

  She caught the reaching arm, yanked it forward to pull him off balance. With her other hand she grabbed the hair on the back of his head, slamming him back against his seat, and then driving his face forward into the steering wheel. The horn honked as Cam’s honker hammered it.

  “Ow!” he screeched. “Oh, you broke my nose!”

  Just then she noticed, as Cameron held his face in his hands
and moaned, Principal Snyder looking into the car. “Unhappy” was the kindest word she could think of for his expression. He gave her the universal “come here” finger wag, except that in this case it was more of a “come here and meet six weeks of detention” gesture.

  Later, in Nurse Greenleigh’s office, the stocky woman prepared an ice pack for Cam’s nose. Prepared in the sense of slamming it down on a countertop with enough force to sound like a small explosion. She put the ice pack on Cameron’s face, and he flinched. There was already a bandage wrapped around his wrist.

  Buffy was too concerned with defending herself to care much about what he was going through.

  “I wasn’t the attacker, Principal Snyder,” she said. “I was the attacked.”

  “That’s not how it looked from where I was standing.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” Cameron added helpfully. “I mean, first she leads me on, then she goes schizo on me.”

  “Lead you on?” Buffy asked, astonished. Does he really believe — ? “When did I lead you on?”

  “C’mon,” he said, more to Mr. Snyder than to her. “I mean, look at the way she dresses.”

  Which wasn’t, she thought, really so bad, was it? A reasonably tight — but not excessively so — sleeveless black V-neck top, a short white skirt, black boots. What’s wrong with this?

  The door opened and another visitor entered the crowded nurse’s office. Coach Marin, the swim coach. He was a big, sturdy man, white-haired, clad all in Sunnydale High burgundy and gold. School spirit personified, she thought. Our first winning coach in years. Come to soothe his wounded warrior.

  Just what I need.

  “Coach,” Mr. Snyder said.

  The coach pushed past Snyder, approached Cam.

  “How we doing, Cameron?” he asked.

  Cameron moved the ice pack away, held his nose out for the coach’s inspection.

  “Coach Marin,” Principal Snyder said. “How bad does it look?”

  The coach examined Cam’s nose like a general inspecting his troops. “Well, luckily, it’s not broken. But it sure as hell’s gonna sting for a few days.”

  “I mean, our chance of winning the state championship,” the principal said, clarifying his priorities. He drew Coach Marin to one side. “Can we still do it?”

  “Oh.” Marin said. “I’m gonna need Cam back at a hundred and ten percent. He’s the best swimmer I got, now that Dodd . . . ” He trailed off.

  “What happened to Dodd?” Buffy asked.

  “That’s none of your concern,” Mr. Snyder snapped at her. “You’d better hope that boy’s nose heals before the meet this Friday.”

  Coach Marin left them, went back to where Cam sat on the examining table. “Walker,” he said, “I want you to hit the steam room as soon as you’re done here. Try to keep those sinuses clear.” Turning to Nurse Greenleigh, he added, “You take care of my boy, Ruthie.”

  “I always do,” the nurse replied.

  Then Coach Marin addressed Buffy. “And you, try to dress more appropriately from now on. This isn’t a dance club.” He looked her up and down once, and stalked away. Principal Snyder followed the coach. Cam just sat on the table, the ice pack near his face not quite hiding the big unpleasant grin there.

  * * *

  “So I’m treated like the baddie,” Buffy told her friends. “Just because he has a sprained wrist and a bloody nose, and I don’t have a scratch on me. Which, granted, hurts my case a little on the surface. But meanwhile, he gets away with it because he’s on the ‘aren’t we the most’ swim team, who, by the way, if no one’s noticed, have been acting like real jerks lately . . .”

  She slowed her rant long enough to realize that Giles, Willow, and Xander were all looking up at her from their various books. Will was seated behind a table, Giles leaning on it near her, and Xander sat on top of the table, a big book open in his lap. It looks, Buffy thought, more like study hall than the library. Well, she amended, it actually did look like a library, she just wasn’t all that used to it being used as one.

  “So,” she laughed softly. “Anything new with you guys?” She sat in a chair at the end of the table.

  “Thank you for taking an interest,” Giles said. As always, his British accent made everything he said sound so, well, English, or something. “Apparently, some remains were found on the beach this morning. Some human remains.”

  “Dodd McAlvy’s remains,” Willow added.

  “Vampires?” Buffy asked.

  “No,” Giles replied. “He was eviscerated. Nothing left but skin and cartilage.”

  “In other words,” Xander offered, “this was no boating accident!”

  “So, something ripped him open and ate out his insides?” Buffy asked, incredulous.

  “Like an Oreo cookie,” Willow said. The others looked at her, but no one spoke. “Well,” she went on, “except for, you know, without the chocolatey cookie goodness.”

  “Principal Snyder’s asked the faculty to keep the news quiet for now so as not to unduly upset the students,” Giles said.

  “For ‘students,’ read ‘swim team.’” The sarcasm was evident in Xander’s tone.

  “So, we’re looking for a beastie,” Willow explained.

  Giles picked up the thread. “That eats humans whole, except for the skin.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Buffy said.

  “Yeah!” Xander agreed. “The skin’s the best part!”

  Buffy shrugged, as in, my point exactly. “Any demons with high cholesterol?”

  Giles turned and gave her a look.

  “You’re gonna think about that later, mister, and you’re gonna laugh,” Buffy said, pointing at him for emphasis.

  She hoped it was true.

  Cameron Walker sat in the steam room, hunched over, elbows resting on his knees. The warm healing mist soothed his aching muscles, but his nose was still bothering him. He tipped his head back, touched his nose with his fingers, drew them away. No blood. The skin had been broken, but at least the bleeding had been stopped.

  He thought he heard a noise, somewhere outside the steam room. He listened. Nothing. He began to relax again —

  And the door flew open. Cameron started.

  “Okay, son,” Coach Marin said. “I think you’ve had enough. Time to hit the shower.” The coach disappeared through the fog.

  Night. The school was as close to silent as big buildings ever get. Xander headed down the empty corridor, jingling change in his hand. He was parched, and his eyes were crossing from all the reading they’d been doing. Why wasn’t there some kind of Unabridged Demonic Dictionary? “Too much research,” he said as he went. “Need beverage.”

  He was looking at the coins in his palm, counting, so he wasn’t looking at the intersecting hallway.

  Which was where Cameron Walker was coming from, also not looking. He slammed into Xander, scattering his coins on the floor.

  “Hey, watch it,” Cam said.

  Xander gave Cam an awed expression, as if having encountered royalty. “Oh, forgive me, your swimteamliness.” He squatted to pick up his change.

  “Loser,” Cameron said, continuing on his way.

  “Liking the nose, Cam,” Xander said. “Good look for you.”

  Cam stopped, turned back to face Xander. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning Buffy must not be on your list of privileges after all.” Cam closed with him, arms crossed over his chest, but Xander held his ground and laughed. “Man, I love it when you guys mess with her.”

  Cameron shook his head dismissively. “You’re lucky I’m hungry.”

  “Oh, the cafeteria’s closed,” Xander said, dripping mock sympathy.

  “Not to me.”

  He headed in that direction, leaving Xander standing in the intersection, wondering what it was about swim team members that made them think they were put on the planet for the rest of humanity to serve.

  * * *

  The cafeteria was dark. Moonlight striped the
walls. Warming lights warmed empty stainless steel trays. No food to be seen. Cameron walked through the big room. There would be something around, maybe back in the freezers.

  But out here, there was a nasty smell. “God, what is that?” he asked no one in particular.

  No one answered.

  Xander stood before the soda machine, faced with the eternal dilemma. So many choices, only one mouth. “Grape, orange. Orange, grape.”

  And from the direction of the cafeteria, a bone-shilling scream split the silence.

  Soda choices would have to wait. He ran.

  The cafeteria looked empty when he got there. Lights off, nobody home.

  But somebody had screamed, and Gage had been coming this way. Xander went in.

  He noticed, pretty quickly, that tables were upended, chairs scattered. The custodians didn’t usually leave the place in this kind of shape. Which meant something had happened.

  And, from the smell of the place, that something wasn’t in the category of good somethings. The smell was rank. Fetid, even.

  He came around one of the overturned tables and saw it. A steaming pile of something, clothing and skin and generally bloody ickiness. Most of it was unrecognizable, but there was a hand that still looked like a hand, five fingers and everything.

  Xander felt nauseated. He put a hand over his nose and mouth, both to block out the smell and to keep himself from getting sick. “Oh my God,” he said. “Oh God.”

  He had to get help. Buffy and the others are in the library, he thought. I could be there in less than a minute, if I left right now. Especially if I run.

  Running was definitely in the plan.

  He turned to do just that, but then he didn’t.

  Because when he turned, he found himself face-to-face with a monster from his worst nightmares.

  It was green and covered in scales. It had teeth, lots of teeth, and hanging down beside its horrible open mouth were whiskers, fish whiskers like a catfish has, which is the reason it’s called a catfish, otherwise looking nothing like a cat. Its hands ended in fingers with big claws on them. It stood almost a head taller than him.