Title: The Long Journey Into Darkness
Author: Crazy_Girl_Mary
Email: crazy_girl_mary@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: The two main characters are Joss', but I'm not stealin' I promise I'll give them back when I'm done.
Summary: A female is on the run from a killer, and he's not going to give up until he has her right where he wants her.
Pairings: Female/Male. This story has a female character a human, and a male vampire from the Buffyverse, but names are not used anywhere in the story. I did this so the reader could envision any characters they wanted. So if you have a thing for Willow/Spike, hey man it's them. There were two characters I had in mind when writing it and some subtle clues you may pick up may lead you to that conclusion, if you want to know who they really are then you can email me and I'll tell you.
Category: Angst.
Spoilers: None, complete AU, just a girl and a vampire.
Rating: NC-17 parts for sexual content, brutal torture, and character deaths.
Author's Comments: This is my latest work, and I think the fact that I've progressed as a writer shows. I'm probably more emotionally attached to this story as corny as it sounds but I still desperately want to know any thoughts, feelings, praises, and most of all criticisms, so please please let me know!

Part XXIII: Dark Thoughts


I’m pondering why a person can be pondering when they are completely fucking sick, deathly ill, out of their mind, but here I am pondering it so I know it happens and I’m pissed off about it because I wish I couldn’t ponder at all. I wish I couldn’t ponder all the pain this process will involve, how sick I’ll get, and how after I survive it he’s going to make me wish I hadn’t. I can even ponder how he will make me beg and cry and bleed. I just wish I could feel worse then I do, which seems impossible, because maybe if I felt a little worse I wouldn’t be able to think all these morbid thoughts. If it hurt a little more my eyes would blur with pain and I wouldn’t be able to see his body and face and the way he looks when he walks through the room towards me with a purpose.

It has been several days at least. I’m not too sure about the time because sometimes I’ll fall asleep in the middle of the day, which I recognize because he sleeps and stays inside, and I’ll wake up in the middle of the day, and I don’t know if this is a new day or the same one. All I know for sure is that this is the worse pain I’ve ever had.

It feels like my insides are twisting and burning with the strongest need I’ve ever had. My skin crawls, my head spins, my eyes burn, and my mouth dries all with the same want. The want, the need, and the desire to be filled with the substances I tried to use to make my body into something he would never want again. He brings me food and drink but I never take it, I don’t even want to but I mainly don’t to defy him. It’s pathetic I know, because there’s no question now about who is in charge, who is the winner, but it’s all I have left. It’s the last ounce of dignity and pride I have left. I have virtually no control over my body, or my mouth, which begs shrilly into the darkness for a pill, a shot of vodka, a line of coke, or anything to get rid of the monster eating at my stomach.

It’s dark now, and he’s been gone for hours. He left the fire burning strong and the room is filled with heat you can almost see, the type of heat that makes you long for ice cream or swimming pools but I don’t feel it. My whole body is shaking with chill and my skin is covered with goose bumps from head to toe. No reason on earth to be cold, it is just part of the process.

When I sleep, I’m not really sleeping. It’s like I’m in this half sleep dream, and the delusions are far worse then any drug could induce. He’s always sitting on the bed watching me. Sometimes he’s naked and hard. He talks to me sweetly like a lover as I lay chained and dirty on his floor. Half of me just wants to cry, and the other half is sure that if I try hard enough I can break the chains and free myself to take possession of his beautifully artful body. Then Drusilla comes to me in her flowing black and red dress and she lies down on my mattress behind me, her body outlining mine perfectly. She runs her fingers through my hair and rubs my back and promises things will get better and I smile although I always know she’s wrong.

After these dreams I’ll wake up with a start and he’s always watching me whether he is sitting up in his own bed, startled by my screams, or sitting across the room watching me with interest and desire. He never says anything. Never gives a clue as too how much of the dream I let slip through my lips. I might have yelled my desire for his swelling body and struggled to get to him in these moments under his watchful gaze but he’s yet to let me know.

Suddenly I’m pulled from my thoughts by an intense pain, almost like being stabbed in the gut with a rusting iron rod, and since I know how it feels I can relate it. I pull my legs in on my stomach and begin to cry but this pain isn’t enough to make the thoughts go away. The only thing that can make the thoughts go away is the reason I feel so horrible. Really the man is the reason for keeping me from the stuff that can make the thoughts and sickness disappear but I really don’t think it’s that bad. He’s going to kill me and I’m all right with that, slow or quick, just as long as he does it and does it all the way, no rise from the dead bullshit.

He has been up to something lately. He hasn’t been home as much as he usually is. Sometimes he’s gone for days at a time and the man who said he had his name, Jonas, takes care of me. He’s actually not that bad for a vampire. He’s like Brad Pitt in The Interview with a Vampire but he does feed and stuff. I think he’s just so scared of his maker that he wouldn’t dare hurt me or be cruel to me. Or maybe he was just such a good person during his life that the demon couldn’t banish all of him. Maybe there is some good trapped inside of him that has to watch all the heinous things the demon does. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking and when he leaves this room he’s just like the rest. No doubt he would have a good teacher.

Whatever he’s been up to I know isn’t good for me because he comes home after being gone for days and he just smiles at me like he can’t wait to tell me what he’s up too, to show me even maybe. He always has that glint in his eye like this might be the most evil thing he’s done and it will be hard to top, but he always tops them, always adds new malice to his activities. He’s been gone for three days now, and maybe when he comes home this time he’ll be able to share with me what he has been up to.

Part XXIV: His Secret Revealed


My body shakes with sickness but I’m unsure about what kind of sickness as two twig-like fingers inch into me further and further as if they have no end. I squeeze around them and my body struggles to it’s own beat, begging them to leave, begging them to stay. Suddenly two long nails curl inside me and rip along my tender inner flesh as they inch their way out and I can’t help but squeeze harder and drive them deeper into my soft sides.

I open my mouth to scream but it’s quickly filled with her tongue. I’ve never witnessed this side of her, this sexual and aggressive side. I try to push her away but my hands are still shackled and they stop just out of reach of her lithe body. Her assault continues and leaves me wondering whether I could stop her surprising strength if I was untied. And why her, why is she here in my dreams? Maybe it’s a dark fantasy buried deep down inside my mainly heterosexual mind to have this dark haired beauty take over my body. But I doubt it because I always scream and I always fight. But wouldn’t I do that with him? Wouldn’t I do that with anyone I wanted? To try and convince myself I didn’t?

My eyes open and I swing my arms wildly around but she’s not there. Like always it was just a dream and inside I wish it weren’t. I would be so happy if she would kill me just so he couldn’t. I would love to keep that pleasure and luxury from him.

He’s lounging on an armchair that he moved near the fire so he could watch me more closely, face to face. His eyes are lit by the bouncing flames and by an inner fire, perhaps evil or lust. He runs the side of his pointer finger over his plush bottom lip for no apparent reason then to make my heart ache. Then he stands and smiles at me before descending the stairs without speaking, always without speaking. He hasn’t said much more then three words at a time since he’s had me. Not even insults. Maybe he thinks I’m too sick to care or understand but I’m not.

I listen intently for him to get in the car and leave but the sounds never come. I hear him open a door and then closing it soon after, and then his feet on the stairs again. He emerges with an immense smile and a large cardboard box in his hands. His eyes stay with mine as I follow him to the middle door on the wall, which I have never seen him enter or emerge from. Inside the door I can only see darkness. He leaves the door open wide but I still cannot see what is inside more then a black void.

The large loft is silent, but when sounds emerge they carry and echo throughout the concrete shell and I can hear everything in that room as if it were happening a few feet away. First I hear him put down his heavy box, and then I hear a distinct ripping sound which is gone as quickly as it came. He is whispering something, talking to someone but his voice is so low it’s almost unheard, like the purring of a cat or rattle of a deadly snake.

I listen as hard as I can through my bouts of pain for someone to answer but I hear nothing for several minutes. It’s as if he’s talking to himself but I know he’s not. I know he has someone in there and he wants me to hear something because he’s left the door open. The silence is stirred by the sound of his fist making contact with hard flesh with a painful thud and the harsh intake of breath I know could not be his. The person he was purring to is a human being, a prisoner. He wants me to hear him torture someone. How sweet.

These sounds continue for what seems like over an hour. The victim never screams as the thuds of the brutal fists continue their attack. This is hard for me because I know that will make him enjoy it even more, if the victim screamed and cried and gave up maybe he would end it sooner. I want to scream and yell for him to stop, to take me instead, but he will take me in the end so it’s all the same to him. Hearing me distraught is his aim and I won’t give him what he desires.

He stops pounding his victim and I hear him pacing around the room. All throughout his assault he purred and rattled to his captive but like before I could never hear his words. Now he does this again begging to elicit something from his victim but the said stays strong, and I hear him kick the victim harshly and the sound of metal on concrete as the chair tips back with the force of the blow.

The victim takes a deep breath as he hits the ground and can’t seem to release it all, but when the assailant slams his foot down hard on the victim’s chest he lets out a loud grunt quickly followed by a rasped obscenity and I realize with pure fear and hatred that it’s Jaime. I no longer care about anything. “Damn you!” I scream loudly, “Let him go! I’m what you want so come and get me! Beat me! Do whatever you want! Come play baby I won’t let you down! I’ll show you a good time! Just let him go and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

I wait for any sign that he is listening to me, that my offer was appetizing enough to distract him. Then it came. I could see his pale form standing just inside the shadows, then he steps forward to lean against the doorjamb and I see his arms are covered with blood that looks black in the darkness and the liquid is also splattered against his face, which even in its grotesque and maniacal state is appealing. “Don’t you see I already have what I want?” he whispers, smiling, and aimlessly picking blood from beneath his fingernails.

Then he goes back into the room and the screaming begins. I don’t cry as I hear Jaime give in to the torture but he never says what his torturer asks or answers the right answer. I wish I could cry, cry with all my might, do anything but scream. I wish I could show Jaime how much I care about him and how much I’m sorry that I got him involved with this animal, that I couldn’t keep him safe. I wonder how much he’s suffered. Is Denise dead or did Jaime get her to safety? I close my eyes and notice that the pain and motions of withdrawal are dimming, not only dimming but almost gone. That means my time for torture is coming soon. I hope it comes sooner then it will but I know it won’t.

The monster’s whispers become rasps but they are still ineligible to me and I know that whatever he wants Jaime isn’t giving him. How could he? I know he never would, and so does the requesting person, it’s just part of the torture, part of the process. The tortured starts to consider giving in and in turn doubts their strength, starts to weaken, and hates themselves all the more for it. He is an expert in this and promises to make the torture of my best friend, the only friend I’ve had in years that truly gave two shits about me, a long and strenuous one for both of us.

Part XXV: Old Friend


I quickly pull the car into the garage and the door slams down behind me. Jonas jumps from behind the garage door. “Shit man! Cutting it a little close aren’t ya?” he asks referring to the sun, which closely tailed me all the way home. I just smile and nod, “Not as close as I could.”

I step out of the SUV and start up the steps without a backward glance at him. He is an imbecile, one, whom I feel I can trust for the time being, but there is always a chance that the beast’s hunger will take over and he won’t be able to contain himself from my captive. I know that she could kill him easily but I also think that maybe she wouldn’t bother. Maybe she would let him take her life because she’s sick of fighting and pain. That’s not something I would care to risk on the likes of Jonas. There are others, however, that I would be willing to risk it on.

I stop outside the door to the room that holds her friend Jaime. I’ve been torturing him for five days straight. He has never once cried or said the things I asked him to say, the things I knew would unnerve her. Like, how deeply he felt about her, and how when they first met he would pretend to fall asleep first to stare at her body during her deep hours, which I only know because I saw him when I was doing the same. I wish he would cry and scream in pain and beg for her to save him and for death but he’s too righteous and cares too much about her to cause her even more pain. He hasn’t once asked about his girlfriend, so exactly where does that leave her? In the shadow of a lover he will never have, my lover.

Yesterday he stopped making noise all together, as good as dead to anyone listening. She stopped screaming after the second day and her returning strength is almost a palpable substance saturating the air and soaking through your skin like the smell of her blood. She is waiting for the perfect time, the perfect time to take her revenge and end a life, not necessarily mine, maybe she just wants to end her own.

I look back over my shoulder with a smile on my face and she is sitting up on her mattress watching me intently, waiting for any sign that he is dead or alive. Whether she wishes him dead and free or alive and with a slim chance is beyond me. The look on her face sends thoughts of rape, torture, breaking flowers and feeding every important part of my body and mind in her, tingling through every dead nerve in my equally dead body. My hand jerks away from the doorknob and I turn fully around to face her.

Jonas is standing at the top of the steps watching my actions keenly with interest. I pass her mattress closely on my way to the bar. “Can I get you a drink doll?” I question and of course she refrains from answering so I pour her a half a glass of vodka and an equal amount of whiskey for myself. Then I slowly approach her mattress and I see it dawn in her face that the attention she has been screaming and begging for for days is finally upon her. A shame it’s too late to use herself to save her friend from me.

I sit next to her on the mattress and she recoils slightly and I see it register in her face after the fact. I hand the drink to her and as her fingers hesitantly touch it a flash comes before my eyes of her smashing it to the ground and stabbing herself in the heart with a particularly long shard. Oh well, its not very likely now is it?

She slowly brings the glass to her dry torn lips and winces as the liquid sears the creases of her mouth. The liquid is gone moments before mine. Obviously the painful lesson on sobriety was lost on her. I take the glasses and pass them to Jonas and he takes them to the sink then disappears downstairs with a wicked smile sensing that our plans were going to be postponed. I watch him intently as he leaves then return my eyes to hers searching for any thoughts to steal away and treasure. I find none, just a void that I have created and part of seeing that makes me wish I could start the torture all over or end it and have her at my side already.

In a slow and deliberate manner I reach in my back pocket and pull out a small ring of keys and pinch the tiniest, the key to her shackles, between my thumb and forefinger. She glances at them momentarily then back at me with a purposefully suspicious gaze. “You smell,” I say wriggling my nose with what I’m sure is a decidedly disdainful look on my face.

“So sorry to inconvenience you master,” she spits mordantly and I smile in return and unlock her shackles. She doesn’t fight with me as I lead her to the bathroom because she knows she would never be able to get out of here even if she did get away from me for a second.

I just open the door and gesture with my hand for her to enter. I’m sure she’s shocked when I don’t follow but close the door behind her without specifying a time limit or anything at all. After only a few seconds she has stripped and the shower begins to run. She no longer cares about my motives she just wants to take advantage of what I’m offering while I am, and because I don’t interrupt she showers for forty-five minutes straight. Normally I would grow extremely impatient, but watching her shadow inside the glass coated in steam, rubbing and washing, is enough to make me wish she would go on forever.

I quickly wrap a towel around my body and wait anxiously for him to enter and take me back to my mattress to dress before his peering eyes. I know the drill, but luckily he’s yet to break me open like before, I think maybe he’s saving that for a special moment between us. He still doesn’t come and I’m starting to get cold, I want to get dressed. I take a few steps towards the door expecting him to come bustling in, smirking, and waiting to take me off to my prison. He doesn’t come. I make it all the way to the door and put my hand on the knob. Then without further ado I quickly open the door and step out into the massive room. I glance around and I notice he is nowhere to be seen but I can sense an animal in the room.

The distance to the stairs or the doors never seemed so far. I hesitate, not knowing what to do next then I casually start towards my mattress where an outfit has been set out on the floor. I hear a swift movement behind me but by the time I turn around there is no one there. Damn it. It’s a trap, just another twisted way to play with me. I ignore the disturbance and start towards the mattress again, quicker this time, driven by instinct that I no longer care to listen to beyond subconsciously. Then I hear something fall over to the floor I quickly turn and see a bulk of a man, bathed in shadows, a few yards away, standing next to a toppled barstool. I know immediately it isn’t him, and I even know with finality who and what it is before his beautiful body emerges from the darkness.

“Hey bruiser.”

I take a staggered step backwards, “No,” I mumble to myself, “No, no, no.”

He struts forward, “Yes… yes, yes, yes.”

“You fucking bastard!” I scream not to Jaime but to the animal that made him such.

“You know what babe,” he says coming closer, “I would’ve expected you to be more delighted to see me after all these years.”

My feet are rooted to the ground and I can’t run. I know now that I should’ve considered this but the thought that he would change Jaime had never crossed my mind for a second. Maybe that’s what makes it so brilliant. I realize that Jaime’s fingers have come up to fondle the top hem of my towel and I pull away slightly. “I’m so hungry!” he screams suddenly and tackles me to the floor. I start to fight back and lose the towel in the scuffle. I start to punch and kick with all my might and Jaime’s strength is tripled in his unlife. I manage to scramble away back towards where I came from knowing the bathroom can provide no shelter but having nowhere else to go. He tackles me from behind, and his weight and force pushes my wet body across the concrete floor. I feel the whole front of my body being torn open.

He roughly turns me over and pins me to the ground. His evil grin and glinting eyes are unlike anything I ever imagined could take place on this face that represents such a friend. He cranes his neck down and licks at a large scrap on my shoulder and I wince and try to pull back. That’s when I realize that the only reason Jaime is in here is because our captor thinks he knows what I’ll do. He wants me to kill my best friend instead of doing it himself. Maybe I won’t do the expected. I don’t see him anywhere around to stop me.

“Take me,” I whisper and he doesn’t hesitate. I feel his teeth tear open my neck and the vice grip I had formed on the toppled chair’s leg loosens. Then I realize that I can’t do this. I can’t just let this demon live in my best friend’s body and torture people in his name. I can’t let that happen to Jaime. That is far more important then fucking him over, or whose hands I die at. If he wants me to kill my best friend then I will. I snap the leg off and pound it through his back as quickly as I can. He doesn’t pull away and look up at me; just drinks right into his death and his ashes shower my wet naked bleeding body. I close my eyes to prevent the tears from flowing and realize they are too heavy to open again.




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