The Dead Girls of London
A ficlet for this month's prompts.
Better than nothing at all, I guess?
Setting: Pre-BtVS season 7
Rating: PG
For the prompt: Geography (blue) - Where does Spike stop on his way back from Africa?
With thanks to Frank Zappa for the title, which is probably the best thing about the entire ficlet.
300 words.
The Dead Girls of London
He stops off in Blighty on his way back to Sunnydale.
Go home to old London town, hole up somewhere familiar for a bit, lick his wounds. Give himself a good talking to.
That was the plan.
But you can't go home. Not when there's a murder on every corner and the murderer is always you.
Corpses piled on corpses, from Bayswater to Barking. Men, women, children. All dead by his hand.
Except the dead aren't usually so chatty, are they? Aren't usually so in your face either, with their torn throats and their screaming lips.
Sod off, he tells them, but they laugh at him with mouths full of blood, and press in closer.
He can still see them, even with his eyes shut.
He could swear blind he saw Mother among them the other day, large as life, twice as fanged, eyes full of shame and fury. Spitting poison at him, and worst of all, singing.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. A soul was supposed to fix him. Make him fit for...
He's not even sure fit for what any more. But it was supposed to make him better.
It was supposed to help him work out what to say when he saw her next, since, "Sorry I tried to rape you, Slayer. Won't do it again. Let's be best mates," seems a bit bloody inadequate.
But it's not done any of that.
(Blackness claws at the edges of his mind. The dead of London drift up like oily smoke from behind area railings, point accusing fingers, click their skeleton teeth, clutch at him with their bony hands. Then they try to drag him down, down, into the dark, where they can devour him at their leisure).
From beneath you...
More like it's driven him crazy.
Better than nothing at all, I guess?
Setting: Pre-BtVS season 7
Rating: PG
For the prompt: Geography (blue) - Where does Spike stop on his way back from Africa?
With thanks to Frank Zappa for the title, which is probably the best thing about the entire ficlet.
300 words.
The Dead Girls of London
He stops off in Blighty on his way back to Sunnydale.
Go home to old London town, hole up somewhere familiar for a bit, lick his wounds. Give himself a good talking to.
That was the plan.
But you can't go home. Not when there's a murder on every corner and the murderer is always you.
Corpses piled on corpses, from Bayswater to Barking. Men, women, children. All dead by his hand.
Except the dead aren't usually so chatty, are they? Aren't usually so in your face either, with their torn throats and their screaming lips.
Sod off, he tells them, but they laugh at him with mouths full of blood, and press in closer.
He can still see them, even with his eyes shut.
He could swear blind he saw Mother among them the other day, large as life, twice as fanged, eyes full of shame and fury. Spitting poison at him, and worst of all, singing.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. A soul was supposed to fix him. Make him fit for...
He's not even sure fit for what any more. But it was supposed to make him better.
It was supposed to help him work out what to say when he saw her next, since, "Sorry I tried to rape you, Slayer. Won't do it again. Let's be best mates," seems a bit bloody inadequate.
But it's not done any of that.
(Blackness claws at the edges of his mind. The dead of London drift up like oily smoke from behind area railings, point accusing fingers, click their skeleton teeth, clutch at him with their bony hands. Then they try to drag him down, down, into the dark, where they can devour him at their leisure).
From beneath you...
More like it's driven him crazy.