by Nancy Holder
“I always liked that song,” Willow said, “before the dusting thing got real. Now it just makes me . . . sad.”
“He was cute,” Xander said, assuming she was really talking about the kur. “Is, I mean. Cutie’s not dead. He’s just in another place, but if you remember how he controlled your mind and twisted your thoughts, maybe you won’t miss him quite—”
Buffy cut him off. “I am so sorry, Willow, but I couldn’t let you die.”
“I know.” Willow sighed. “I just don’t want to talk about it.” She looked at Xander. “Ever again.”
“Never it is.” Xander tapped his foot to the beat of the Queen song for a moment. “I think Oz likes you.”
“The guitar guy?” Willow scoffed. “Oh, yeah. Right. I can just see me holding down the band table at the Bronze.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Xander said.
Willow smiled. “Well, yeah. But there’s strange, and then there’s impossible.”
“Incoming,” Xander announced when the first wave of student shoppers burst through the doors.
All the tension eased out of Buffy as she listened to her friends banter back and forth. Her mother was back in mom mode, and Giles was dutifully keeping Watcher notes. Good had triumphed over evil one more time, and normal reigned supreme.
Best of all, she had a midnight rendezvous to keep at Myra Stanley’s tombstone, inscribed in 1953 by her beloved husband of sixty years: MY ANGEL FOREVER.
AFTERIMAGE
TO KEITH DECANDIDO
SPECIAL THANKS TO
MY EDITOR, PATRICK PRICE;
EMILY WESTLAKE;
AND MY AGENT, JENNIFER JACKSON
PROLOGUE
They’d thrown the place together in the 1950s, back when land and gas were cheap and no one had ever heard of a compact car. Scores of acres large, the Sunnydale Drive-In sat square in the center of a tract of land just outside the city limits, a reasonable distance from even the farthest houses. The relative isolation meant that the owners could go about their business without troubling the neighbors. Engine noises and fumes alike would be borne away on the night wind, and the light and glare of the movies’ operation would inconvenience no one.
It had gone up fast and cheap, but in an era when things fast and cheap were still built to last. The main buildings had solid cinder-block walls reinforced with steel beams, and the plumbing and power lines were buried deep in armored conduits that still held up after decades of disuse. Even the huge screen, curved like a shield and facing the parking area, remained structurally sound. The screen’s surface was a lost cause, of course, ruined by long years of exposure and no repair, but its supporting framework was perfectly serviceable.
The place’s persistence was somewhat amazing, actually. There weren’t many enterprises that could stand abandoned and unattended for so long and survive so well.
“They did good work,” the contractor said. He was a big man, with beefy muscle that was slowly turning to fat and calloused hands that came with a career of physical labor. He parked his big pickup on the hill that overlooked the screen, got out, and unrolled the drive-in’s original blueprints on his truck’s hood. “Look,” he said, indicating sections of the diagram. “Projection shack, concession stand, box office—they’re all sound. Screen needs a new facing and the sound system will be updated, of course.” He paused to glance at the bank loan officer who’d accompanied him on the ride out from Sunnydale. “You’ve got someone working the FCC thing, right?”
The loan officer nodded and dabbed sweat from his forehead. He wasn’t in his element. It was a sunny afternoon and the fair skin of his bald scalp had already begun to redden. More perspiration darkened the shoulders and armpits of his suit. “The license should be ready by the time you finish installation,” he said. The resurrected drive-in would use broadcast sound rather than car-side speakers, and the Federal Communications Commission had to approve the equipment. “Assuming you can meet the deadline,” he continued.
“Sure, no problem,” responded the contractor. He spoke as if uttering a completely self-evident truth. “Run cables, patch pipes, landscape. Re-screen and install new signage. Marquee is a standard issue. Nothing big, really. My boys will have this place up and running in four weeks. Three if we run extra shifts.”
“Four will be fine,” the banker replied. He opened his briefcase atop the blueprint and began pulling out document folders. “Here,” the banker said, handing them to the contractor one at a time. “You’ll need these. Letter of credit, insurance forms, detailed specification sheets.” Before handing over the last folder, he indicated the papers inside. “Contract. Sign and date.”
It was quiet at the old drive-in. Even in the open vastness, the scratch of ballpoint pen was easily heard. As he signed his name, the contractor commented, “I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but you don’t seem very happy for a guy who’s just been told that the job’s a piece of cake.”
“I’m sorry,” the banker said. “I’m sure you’ll do good work. I’m just not certain that reopening this place is a good idea. It has a history.”
CHAPTER ONE
No,” Buffy Summers said. She shook her head for emphasis, her blond hair rippling like water under the fluorescent lights. “I’m dead serious. He looked exactly like a penguin.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound very frightening,” Willow Rosenberg replied. She looked skeptical. “I mean, penguins are friendly, formal fellows. They make children laugh! How much of a problem could a penguin be?”
They were at the big table in the Sunnydale High library. The school day had ended, but sometimes a Slayer’s day, like her work, was never done. Buffy, Willow, and Cordelia Chase were seated, but Giles stood, thumbing through one of his countless books and apparently not paying much attention to Buffy’s report of the previous night’s activities. Neither was Cordelia, who doodled idly on a composition book cover. But Willow was hanging on Buffy’s every word about an encounter near the city zoo.
“Well, this particular penguin was eight feet tall, with fangs and claws,” Buffy said. “Still formal—”
“—but not so friendly,” Willow said, finishing her sentence.
Buffy nodded. Fangs and claws were nearly everyday factors in her life as the Slayer. But a giant-size penguin? Now, that was something new. “Giles, ever hear about anything like that before? That’s one for the books, right?”
For a man whose title was Watcher, Giles spent a lot of time listening. Without comment, he reversed the book he held, so that the three girls could see its opened pages.
One page was covered with tightly spaced lines of text in an ugly font. Opposite was an elaborate illustration of a gigantic penguin with fangs and claws. Beside it, evidently to indicate scale, was a human silhouette. The penguin-thing towered over the man.
“Oh,” Buffy said meekly as Giles resumed his reading.
“So, um, what did you do?” Willow asked. “You got him, right?”
Buffy nodded again. Pretty and well built, with large, expressive eyes that gleamed when she spoke, she often used gestures and motions to underscore her words.
“Well, the stake wouldn’t do much good,” Buffy said. “Those things have a thick layer of blubber or something—”
“Birds don’t have blubber,” Cordelia said smugly. They were her first words since joining the conclave, and it made sense that they’d be a correction.
Buffy and Willow blinked in unison. Cordelia wasn’t particularly scholarly, and thus the tidbit of knowledge she offered so casually came as a bit of a surprise. Seeing their expressions, Cordelia explained. “Sixth-grade book report.” She tapped her temple with one elegant finger, clearly pleased to have pointed out Buffy’s error. “Good memory. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Oh,” Buffy said. Resolutely, she soldiered on. “He was coming at me pretty fast. When I had the chance, I reached inside his chest and kept reaching.” She demonstrated with a pantomime, her arm extended and o
pen fingers wiggling.
Willow’s eyes bulged. Buffy made a note to herself to cut back on the graphic detail. As with the fangs and claws thing, she’d become so accustomed to the nuts and bolts of her work that she sometimes forgot how squeamish civilians could be. And although Willow wasn’t quite a civilian, she wasn’t the Slayer, either. As for Cordelia . . .
To be perfectly honest, Buffy wasn’t entirely sure what role Cordelia Chase had in her life these days. They’d disliked each other since Buffy’s first day at Sunnydale High, but recent events had cast the Slayer and the shallow beauty queen as reluctant allies.
But she could worry about that later, Buffy decided.
“I kept reaching,” she continued, limiting her account to words, not reenactment, “until I found something hard, and then I squeezed it. The thing made a burp—”
“Real penguins make a sound like a crow’s caw,” Cordelia said.
“—and then he kind of melted,” Buffy said. She favored Cordelia with a sharp look. “I don’t suppose regular penguins do that, either?”
“What became of the remains?” Giles asked.
Buffy shrugged. “There are storm drains all over that courtyard,” she said. “Last I saw, Frosty was dripping into one. It rained this morning too. I don’t think anything was left behind.”
Giles nodded, closing his book. Buffy wasn’t sure whether he was relieved because of strategic concerns or simply because he was a tidy man.
“Wait until Xander hears about this,” Willow said excitedly.
“Where is Xander, anyway?” Cordelia asked. She set down her pen. “That boy’s been making himself pretty scarce lately after school.”
Willow looked mildly confused. “When did you start keeping tabs on Xander?”
Before Cordelia could respond, the library doors opened and the subject of Willow’s question sauntered in. Xander Harris was tall and dark-haired, and usually looked mildly bemused by the world around him. He had good features and better eyes. He grinned as he entered, book bag under one arm and a thick sheaf of papers under the other.
“Hey there, groovy guys and groovy gals,” he said, dropping into an empty chair on Cordelia’s side of the table. He continued, “Oh, and Giles, too.”
“Speak of the devil,” Cordelia said.
“You know, Cordy, that’s the kind of thing you probably shouldn’t say,” Xander said. “I mean, since we live on top of the Hellmouth and all.” He dropped his book bag to the floor and placed his sheaf of papers facedown on the table in front of him. It was a two-inch stack of orange sheets, clamped together with a heavy binder clip.
“Where have you been?” Buffy asked.
Xander made a wry expression. “Had to pick up an extra-credit assignment,” he said. “I really blew that history quiz Monday.”
“Not just now,” Buffy said. “You’ve been making yourself scarce lately.” Not only had Xander nearly missed the current gathering of friends and associates—the Scoobies—he’d completely missed several promised study sessions during the preceding two weeks. And if Xander didn’t study, he didn’t do well on quizzes. It was one of the secret laws of the universe.
“After-school job,” Xander said. He seemed inordinately pleased with himself. “Two or three hours a day and I have enough for comic books, video games, and big bowls of Skittles.”
Xander could talk for a long time about junk food and other ephemera. Before he could go any further down that conversational path, Buffy asked, “Where are you working, Xander?”
Xander proudly unclipped the stack of papers he’d brought and passed the orange sheets around. His voice took on the cadence of a carnival barker as he said, “Check it out, check it out, something you will enjoy.”
It was a handbill. Halftone images made up the background, clearly of actors and actresses in character, a few of whom Buffy recognized. Overlaid on the collage were increasingly larger lines of type, announcing:
Grand Opening! Grand Opening!!
Grand Opening!!!
The Return of a Great Tradition!
Go to the Drive-In and Have Yourselves a Treat!
Dusk to Dawn Thrillerama Festival of Fun!
Free Corn Dogs and Cola for Late-Stayers!
Next came a list of movies. Giles and the girls read the titles, then stared at Xander with expressions that ranged from confusion to disdain, with many stops in between.
“Great, huh?” Xander asked, obviously delighted and expecting them to be too. “Double Drunken Dragon Kung Fu Fight is the one for me!”
“Mysteries of Chainsaw Mansion?” Buffy asked skeptically.
“It’s a horror movie,” Xander said helpfully.
“Not for me, thanks,” Buffy said. “I’ve got enough problems.”
“What is this?” Cordelia asked. “The Lonely Cheer leader? That’s ridiculous! Cheerleaders are never lonely!”
“You should know,” Xander said, slightly crestfallen. He reached to reclaim the handbill, but she pulled it away.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Willow said. She pushed back a stray lock of coppery hair. “Some of these look pretty interesting. What’s Caged Blondes about?”
“It’s a women-in-prison movie,” Xander said. Much of his habitual good cheer had ebbed, but not all of it. “Good woman, accused of a crime she didn’t commit, has to fight her way to freedom. They used to be a staple of drive-ins.”
“Which brings us, inexorably, to the next question,” Giles said. He sounded patient. He was very good at making patience sound like exasperation, though. “What on earth is a drive-in?”
“Hey, yeah, that’s right, G. You’re from Jolly Old England,” Xander said as if he’d just remembered.
“Yes, Xander, I am,” Giles said, sounding even more patient, which meant that he wasn’t.
“I guess they don’t have drive-ins there,” Xander said. Primarily for the Watcher’s benefit, he offered up a quick history of drive-ins and drive-in movies. The theaters sprang up early in the twentieth century, as a relatively low-tech, low-investment means of exhibition. They hit their stride in the 1950s with the emergence of teenagers as a specific marketing niche. Their popularity started to fade out late in the 1970s, and though some drive-ins lingered, they were few and far between.
“Home video and rising gas prices conspired to make the business impractical,” Xander concluded.
“You’ve been reading again,” Buffy said. She pursed her lips in a mock kiss. “I’m so proud of you!”
Xander looked at her blankly.
“I can tell when you’re quoting a reference work,” she said. “Your face screws up and I can hear the gears spin in your head.” She made a mechanical sound.
“Reading is all well and good,” Giles said, handing the sheet back as if he were concerned it might bite him, “but what does this have to do with any of us?”
“The old Sunnydale Drive-In is reopening,” Xander said. He took the sheet and returned it to his stack, then reluctantly accepted Buffy’s and Cordelia’s. Willow kept hers. “I’ve been working at the construction site,” he said, then corrected himself. “The reconstruction site, I guess. You know, doing coffee and meal runs, sweeping up, that sort of thing.” He indicated his stack of handbills. “I’m supposed to distribute these.”
“So you’re a flunky,” Cordelia said tartly. Sometimes it seemed to Buffy that Cordelia said everything tartly.
“I prefer to think of myself as a ‘diversified assistant,’” Xander responded.
“A gopher,” Buffy said. “You gophe for things.”
“If you must put it like that,” Xander said.
“I think it’s a nice way to put it,” Willow said. “Gophers are adorable.”
Remarkably, Xander blushed. There were times when Willow could make him do that, if she said just the right thing at the right moment. “Anyway, Boss-man says he’s had success in other cities, with festivals and retrospectives. Pick up the facilities for a song, slap some new paint on the place,
and voilà!”
He beamed. No one beamed back at him. If none of the other four looked confused anymore, none of them looked particularly interested, either, with the possible exception of Willow. Oblivious, Xander rambled on. “Even better,” he said, “I’ve got passes. Grand opening is this Friday, and you’re all invited. On me!”
“This is at night, right?” Buffy asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Xander said. He looked wounded by the question, or mildly offended, or some mixture of the two. “Can’t watch movies outside in broad daylight.”
“I have a date,” she said.
“Oh?” Cordelia asked coolly.
“Angel?” Xander asked.
“Mr. Pointy,” Buffy said. She cocked her head and leaned in Xander’s direction. “Hello?” she asked. “Patrol, remember? ‘Dusk to dawn’ kind of gets in the way, even if it looks like something I’d enjoy.” She paused. “Which I don’t think it does, really. Caged Blondes?”
“Oh. Right.”
“Sorry,” Buffy said, managing to sound regretful—not filled with sorrow, but sorry to have disappointed him.
“How about you, Cordelia?” Xander asked.
“I’ll be busy too,” she said.
“Date?” he asked, sounding a little bit worried.
“Now, Xander, where do I usually go on Fridays? Hmmmm?” Cordelia asked. When he continued to look at her blankly, she explained. “The Bronze. It’s girls’ night out.”
“Well, maybe Harmony and Aura—”
“Oh, yeah,” Cordelia said with mild sarcasm, interrupting as he named her friends. “They’d be up for a night out with you. And movies like these. Uh-huh. Sure.”
Willow raised her hand with just a bit of timidity. She wiggled her fingers for attention, but no one seemed to notice. Xander and Cordelia, especially, were too busy trading half glares.
Giles cleared his throat. When no one noticed that, either, he cleared it again, loudly. “Ahem,” he said, secure in his audience at last. “As fascinating as all of this is, I think it’s time to turn our attention to more substantive matters than American entertainments. When you made your belated entrance, Xander, Buffy was regaling us with her exploits on patrol last night. Perhaps she’d like to resume?”