And, even though she was surrounded by buildings, the sky seemed endless.
Picking up her bag, she began to trudge up the street to the cheap looking motel she had seen from the bus as they had passed it. She had enough money for a couple of nights if she was lucky, then she'd be tapped out.
She would have saved enough for a Big Mac meal too if she had gotten off at the last stop--the capital she vaguely remembered from geography lessons, surely a large city-- but one look at Topeka and her mind had said 'no way'. The next stop had been as far as she could go if she wanted to sleep in a bed rather than on a park bench for more than a night.
So, here she was in Lawrence, Kansas, wondering what the Hell she was going to do with the remainder of her most- likely short life.
*****
Part 1
Buffy awoke at dawn to a really annoying sound coming through the paper thin walls of her motel room. It was a loud raspy buzz with a whine in it. Wondering what the Hell it was, she pulled herself from the bed and stumbled over to the window. Pulling open the curtains, she blinked in the early morning sun, but didn't see anything that might make such a horrendous noise.
Yawning, she groped her way into the bathroom to take a shower. Item number one on the list of things to do that day was buy a newspaper, quickly followed by item number two which was find a job.
*****
At 7:00 Buffy left her motel room to head for the nearby McDonalds for breakfast. She was immediately assaulted by what seemed like a million flying, buzzing bugs rising from the tree outside her room. Battling her way through them, she made her way to the relative safety of the parking lot.
"Great. I've moved to bug world," she muttered under her breath as she stalked down the street.
As she bought her breakfast and a paper, she was informed that the bugs were locusts and that the town was at the convergence of two separate cycles. In other words--a plague. Just perfect for her mood.
*****
Finding a job was ridiculously easy. Apparently, Lawrence had a very transient young population and there were a lot of employers willing to hire day labor without references.
By noon, Buffy was digging potatoes on a farm north of town alongside two young men and one woman. At a break they all sat under a large shade tree, drinking bottles of Gatorade. The other three--Tad, Janice and Quinton--had been traveling together for over a year.
"Yeah, we spent the summer here last year. It's a great town. Lots of cool people. Great music. The cops are pretty cool, too," Janice said between swigs of her drink.
"They don't roust you unless you're causing trouble. They get on panhandling, though, but there are always jobs like these in the summer," Tad added.
"So, where are you from, Buffy?" Quinton asked.
"Southern California. A little pit of a town an hour from L.A."
"Cool. We were in Frisco for a while last winter," Tad said.
Buffy was a little surprised that these kids, just a few years older than her own seventeen, spent their lives traveling around the country. It was a new phenomenon to her. "So, where do you stay here?"
Janice pointed back towards the town. "About two miles down this road there's a campground. We just pitch a tent. There are showers and a shop. The owner is pretty cool. Used to tour with some ancient rock band and is really into hippy stuff, so he gives us a decent rate."
Quinton stood up, brushing down his baggy camouflage pants. "Better get back to it. Hey, if you ain't doing anything after work, there are some great local bands playing at a club downtown where they have real cheap sandwiches. You want to come with?"
Buffy thought about it for a split second. She didn't really want to have a good time ever again, but a girl needed to eat. "Sure."
*****
One month passed pretty quickly as Buffy settled into life in Lawrence, Kansas. Her speedy work on the farm had gotten her hired on for the rest of the summer and after three weeks at the campground, she had been able to rent a small, furnished trailer. She could afford it as long as she lived off hamburger helper and canned vegetables and walked everywhere.
She kept herself too busy to think much about the life she had left behind. Sometimes she wondered what her friends were up to, if her mom was okay. A few times she had reached for a pay phone and just stopped herself from calling someone. The merest hint of a thought about Angel was brutally shoved to the back of her mind.
Her days fell into a welcome pattern. Up before dawn, a two mile walk to work, eight hard hours in the field, a two mile walk back to her trailer, shower, dinner, then hopefully dreamless sleep. On the weekends, she usually hung out on the downtown main street--which for some reason was not called Main Street, but was known as Massachusetts Street--with her new friends, going to clubs, playing video games and watching the world pass her by. Anything to prevent herself from having to think.
Her new friends didn't know much about her. That way, no one would get close enough to her to get hurt. She was still the Slayer, after all, although she hadn't seen anything worth slaying since her arrival. That was probably a good thing. Her anger at demons in general and vampires in specific had been building into a simmering fury for over a month.
The first vampire to cross her path would probably get the pounding of his or her unlife before being staked.
*****
A Saturday night in mid July found Buffy walking back across the bridge from the downtown just after midnight. Quinton had, for the dozenth time, tried to convince her to spend the night with him and rather than hang around watching him nurse her rejection with beer, she had decided to split.
A part of her wondered why she couldn't just fling herself into a one night stand with him or with any of the guys who had asked her in the last month. But the larger part of her knew why. Her body was cold and dead and she preferred it that way. Being held and caressed might just bring her back to life and that was the last thing she wanted.
Of course, she still loved Angel as well, although she didn't allow herself to think about him as being the real excuse for not wanting to sleep with anyone else.
Living on the streets--or near enough to it--for the past month, Buffy had seen a side of life she had only heard about. The kids here lived hand to mouth. Most slept in the parks or at the campground. None of the girls were alone. It was a well accepted fact that it was easier to get by with a guy--someone to share the expenses with, someone to protect you from the creeps that were out there. Sometimes love was involved, but more often relationships were formed for survival and companionship.
Their lives were nothing she had been prepared for. She had been raised to be like some of the college girls who came downtown on the weekends to shop, driving their daddy's cars and smelling of designer perfume. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she had once been just like them.
Suddenly a car screeched to a halt beside her, causing her to jump in surprise. As she spun around, Buffy took in the large black car, then stumbled back against the bridge railing in even more surprise at the sight of the figure emerging from the driver's side.
"I knew I recognized that butt!"
With a wide grin on his face, Spike flicked his cigarette away and circled the front of the car.