Addendum to the Disclaimer: The Leeds Devil, better known as the Jersey Devil, is one of the most famous and best researched spooky beasties out there. I first discovered it at a very young age, reading a book my older sister owned called "Monsters You've Never Heard Of". While that book is LOOOOONG out of print (and its too bad, because our copy no longer has its cover, which had one of the creepiest representations of the Jersey Devil I've ever seen), you can find info on the Jersey Devil online at (of course) weirdNJ.com.
The culture of "travelers" that Nomad belongs to is also real. Very real. There are kids out there, mostly late teens, early twenties, who really live like this, every day, all over the country. They fascinate me, though I don't neccessarily agree with their politics. If you want to know more about them, feel free to email me and ask, I've been collecting information on them for a little more than two years now.
Addendum to the author's note (aka, random trivia about Casix): I've wanted to do a Buffy fanfic on the Jersey Devil for several years now. Originally, I was planning on doing one for the summer after graduation, having Xander run over it with his car while driving through New Jersey. But I'm a bit of a canon whore, so when I hadn't finished it by the time the fourth season started, I scrapped it (it really wasn't very good. . . ). I even wrote a limerick to go along with the story. Which was also scrapped.
Roads Less Traveled
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 8: Leeds Devil
Part one
Dawn sighed, relieved, as her cellphone rang. Anything that distracted her from the essays Wood had assigned her was a good thing, in her mind. She had really enjoyed touristing in DC the last could of days with Xander and was looking forward to a day of shopping in Georgetown, complete with a detailed map and store recommendations from the still-hospitalized Foresta. Writing an essay on the Enola Gay to go along with their trip to the Air and Space Museum was the last thing she wanted to do. She flipped the phone open and blinked at the enormous string of numbers displayed on the small screen.
"Hello?"
"Dawn? It's Willow."
"Hey!" Well, that explained it. The numbers were probably country codes. "How's Europe?"
"Great. And if Wood ever assigns you anything on the conflict in Northern Ireland, I now know everything you'll need. Probably more."
"I'll remember that." Dawn glanced over to where Xander stretched out on his bed. "Xan's asleep, but I can wake him up if you want,"
Willow sighed. "You probably should. You guys need to hit the road."
"But it's our weekend off!"
"Your next slayer's been on the move. She just stopped in New Jersey, but there's no telling how long she'll stay. It's about three hours from DC."
Dawn groaned. "Okay, I'll wake Xander, but you get to explain why we have to leave at midnight."
"You think that's bad? It's five AM here. I haven't even slept yet."
"You can tell me all about it while Xander drives." Dawn shot Xander an evil look.
Willow laughed. "Sounds good. Just be ready for me to fall asleep mid sentence,"
Dawn yawned, resting her elbow against the car door as she held the phone to her ear. "Okay, we're in Easton now. Where are we going?"
"Cross. . . ." Willow cracked a yawn as well. "Cross the bridge into New Jersey, and continue on 22 until you get to First Street. We've got her in a field by one of the schools."
Xander blinked rapidly as Dawn relayed the information to him. His head drooped occasionally, and he hadn't spoken more than four words in the entire three hour drive. Dawn had kept up a constant chatter with Willow, hoping to help keep him awake.
They hit a series of rumble strips as they drove around a sharp curve in the road, and Xander jerked his head up again. "Please tell me we're almost there."
"You're almost there." Willow sounded as tired as Xander did. "Just find the girl, and then you two can go back to bed."
"Thank god." Dawn sighed. "Wood better give me an extension on that paper."
"Extenuating circumstances." Willow's voice grew muffled for a moment, then she came back on the line. "Okay, we can't get a name, since she doesn't seem to have an address. I know this is a bit unorthodox, but bear with us guys. And be careful. There's no telling what this girl is into."
"Got it." They drove across the bridge and into Phillipsburg. Easton, PA and Phillipsburg seemed to blend together at the edges, separated only by the Delaware river. The road looped around a few more times, bordered on the right by dingy looking shops, and on the left by circles of grass and trees. They passed a gas station and Xander blinked again. Then he grinned.
"We are so filling up here. We're filling up, and buying three extra gas canisters and carrying extra with us."
Dawn looked at the sign. The price of gas was a good twenty cents cheaper here than in Pennsylvania, and forty cheaper than any they'd seen in DC.
"God." Dawn rolled her neck. "You know the economy's in the shitter when you get excited by gas that costs less than two dollars a gallon."
"Hell yeah." Xander shifted gears as another driver cut them off from a side road at high speed. "Drivers here suck, though. Which way are we turning on First?"
Dawn listened a moment. "Left."
Xander shifted lanes, then blinked and shifted back to the right. "Sign says right lane."
"But we're turning left."
Xander shrugged and pulled into a looping off ramp type road. They pulled to a stop at the light, aimed to drive straight onto First Street. "Jug handle turn. I've heard of these."
Dawn shrugged, leaning her head back. "Okay, Willow, First Street, then what?"
"Drive to the end of the street and turn left. The field should be on your left, it's marked here as a baseball diamond."
"Cool."
Xander steered the car silently through the turns, then finally pulled to a stop up against a curb. The baseball diamond lay empty in front of them. "This it?"
"Yeah."
"So where's our girl?"
Dawn shrugged. The diamond was bordered on three sides by thick rows of trees and bushes. "Maybe she's hiding from something?"
Willow yawned again, starting a chain reaction as Dawn yawned in response, followed by Xander.
"That's all I've got for you. Good luck, guys, call me tomorrow, let me know how it goes."
"Okay." Dawn reached for the clasp of her seat belt. "Have fun in Ireland."
"I already am. Bye Dawn."
"Bye Willow."
The phone clicked off.
A group of five teenagers spilled out of the trees at the far end of the diamond, followed closely by a group of seven vampires. The teens, a rather motley crew dressed in crusty, patched clothing, carrying small bags, fought back with box cutter knives and cans of pepper spray, but were only barely keeping the vamps at bay.
Xander blinked at them. He glanced at the dashboard. Then he blinked at them again. He looked exhausted.
One of the teens, a girl with faded blue, thick dread locks, was obviously doing better against the vamps than her companions, though her movements were awkward and untrained. She threw a vampire three times her side back into the woods.
"There's our slayer."
Xander nodded.
"We should help her."
Xander nodded again. Then he slammed his foot into the accelorator, aiming the car at a pair of vampires menacing one of the teens.
The teenagers scattered, but the vamps, obviously newly risen and remarkably cocky, simply flicked the vehicle off.
The car slammed into the two vampires, the hood folding under the impact, the windshield cracking as they rolled up over the top of the car and down the back.
Dawn already had a pair of stakes and an axe ready from the back seat. As soon as Xander jerked the car to a stop, she leaped out, tossing Blue-Dreads one of her stakes. The girl shouted a thanks, and dispatched three of the vamps in rapid succession. She tried to stake a fourth, but missed the heart. Dawn rushed into the fight, axe swinging. The fourth vampire lost its head and crumpled to dust.
Xander backed the car back over the two vamps he'd hit, watching through the rearview mirror as steam rose from under the hood. The car whined and he ran them over two more times, then finally gave up and stopped working completely. Xander groaned, pulling out one of the swords, and climbed out of the car. He slammed the sword down onto the necks of the two writhing vampires, and smiled tiredly as they dusted.
Blue-Dreads had a hold on the last remaining vamp, and shouted to Dawn for assistance. Dawn grinned, and shoved her stake into its chest.
As the dust settled, the slayer glanced over her four friends. "Everyone okay?"
A series of nods, and Blue-Dreads smiled. A curly haired boy with an enormous, bushy beard, looked sullen.
"I lost my guitar somewhere, though."
Blue-Dreads rolled her eyes. "You dropped it back at the playground. We'll go get it, don't worry." She turned to Xander and Dawn, who were sullenly watching the steam pouring out of their car. "Thanks for the save, sorry 'bout the car though. I'm Nomad. Guitar boy here is Coyote," She pronounced it "Kai-yoat" as the boy waved, "And these are Artemis, Chickadee, and Sam."
Artemis was an Asian girl with roughly cropped, wild hair and a six inch scar across her nose and right cheek. Chickadee was a large, burly kid with a shaved head and a soul patch. Sam wore a stained scarf around the lower half of his face, his dishwater blonde hair hanging down into his eyes. Dawn shook their hands.
"I'm Dawn and this is Xander. Those guys you were fighting. . . ."
"Vampires." Sam nodded. His voice was strangely low and graveled, not muffled in the least by his scarf. "We know."
Xander nodded. He was too tired to be surprised by anything, including the strange group in front of him and their knowledge of vampires. "Well, Nomad is–"
"A slayer." Sam nodded again. Dawn blinked.
"How do you know about slayers?"
Artemis shrugged. "Sam here knows a lot about most things. But anyone with even a glimmer of magic felt that spell last year." She raised a finger, producing a small flame at the tip which she used to light up a hand-rolled cigarette. "We knew what Nomad was the moment she was called."
"Huh." Xander sat down on the curb. "Then you know there's a whole lot of them now, not just one?"
"We're a little fuzzy on the details, but, yeah." Chickadee's voice was surprisingly high-pitched. He slumped down into the road. "It's tough to hold onto weapons, though, even something as simple as a stake. Good thing you two came along."
Nomad was staring at Dawn and Xander, her hands on her hips. "How do you two know about slayers?"
"We're looking for them." Xander leaned back on his arms and yawned again. "Have been for a couple months now. Some friends of ours are running a school out in Cleveland, and we're trying to get as many girls to attend as possible, so they all have the training they need when they run into a situation like the one you guys were just in. The Helsing Institute." He gestured at the defunct car. "I've got a pamphlet in there, somewhere."
Coyote nodded. "Well, we can talk again in the morning. You two have a place to stay?"
Dawn shook her head. "We just got into town. I don't suppose there's any hotels around, preferably within walking distance?"
"In Phillipsburg?" Coyote laughed. "Nah. But a friend of ours lives down the road a couple blocks. We're crashing with him for the night before moving on." He glanced at Artemis and Chickadee, who nodded. Nomad looked a little wary, but shrugged. "You're welcome to join us."
"Sounds good." Xander shoved himself to his feet. "Lay on, Macduff."
"The girls and Chickadee can take you." Coyote's eyes slid over toward Sam. "I gotta get my guitar. Sam, you wanna walk with me for a bit?"
Sam nodded and turned toward the baseball diamond without another word. Coyote waved and followed.
Artemis, Chickadee, and Nomad exchanged glances. "Well, let's get going."
End part one
The culture of "travelers" that Nomad belongs to is also real. Very real. There are kids out there, mostly late teens, early twenties, who really live like this, every day, all over the country. They fascinate me, though I don't neccessarily agree with their politics. If you want to know more about them, feel free to email me and ask, I've been collecting information on them for a little more than two years now.
Addendum to the author's note (aka, random trivia about Casix): I've wanted to do a Buffy fanfic on the Jersey Devil for several years now. Originally, I was planning on doing one for the summer after graduation, having Xander run over it with his car while driving through New Jersey. But I'm a bit of a canon whore, so when I hadn't finished it by the time the fourth season started, I scrapped it (it really wasn't very good. . . ). I even wrote a limerick to go along with the story. Which was also scrapped.
Roads Less Traveled
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 8: Leeds Devil
Part one
Dawn sighed, relieved, as her cellphone rang. Anything that distracted her from the essays Wood had assigned her was a good thing, in her mind. She had really enjoyed touristing in DC the last could of days with Xander and was looking forward to a day of shopping in Georgetown, complete with a detailed map and store recommendations from the still-hospitalized Foresta. Writing an essay on the Enola Gay to go along with their trip to the Air and Space Museum was the last thing she wanted to do. She flipped the phone open and blinked at the enormous string of numbers displayed on the small screen.
"Hello?"
"Dawn? It's Willow."
"Hey!" Well, that explained it. The numbers were probably country codes. "How's Europe?"
"Great. And if Wood ever assigns you anything on the conflict in Northern Ireland, I now know everything you'll need. Probably more."
"I'll remember that." Dawn glanced over to where Xander stretched out on his bed. "Xan's asleep, but I can wake him up if you want,"
Willow sighed. "You probably should. You guys need to hit the road."
"But it's our weekend off!"
"Your next slayer's been on the move. She just stopped in New Jersey, but there's no telling how long she'll stay. It's about three hours from DC."
Dawn groaned. "Okay, I'll wake Xander, but you get to explain why we have to leave at midnight."
"You think that's bad? It's five AM here. I haven't even slept yet."
"You can tell me all about it while Xander drives." Dawn shot Xander an evil look.
Willow laughed. "Sounds good. Just be ready for me to fall asleep mid sentence,"
Dawn yawned, resting her elbow against the car door as she held the phone to her ear. "Okay, we're in Easton now. Where are we going?"
"Cross. . . ." Willow cracked a yawn as well. "Cross the bridge into New Jersey, and continue on 22 until you get to First Street. We've got her in a field by one of the schools."
Xander blinked rapidly as Dawn relayed the information to him. His head drooped occasionally, and he hadn't spoken more than four words in the entire three hour drive. Dawn had kept up a constant chatter with Willow, hoping to help keep him awake.
They hit a series of rumble strips as they drove around a sharp curve in the road, and Xander jerked his head up again. "Please tell me we're almost there."
"You're almost there." Willow sounded as tired as Xander did. "Just find the girl, and then you two can go back to bed."
"Thank god." Dawn sighed. "Wood better give me an extension on that paper."
"Extenuating circumstances." Willow's voice grew muffled for a moment, then she came back on the line. "Okay, we can't get a name, since she doesn't seem to have an address. I know this is a bit unorthodox, but bear with us guys. And be careful. There's no telling what this girl is into."
"Got it." They drove across the bridge and into Phillipsburg. Easton, PA and Phillipsburg seemed to blend together at the edges, separated only by the Delaware river. The road looped around a few more times, bordered on the right by dingy looking shops, and on the left by circles of grass and trees. They passed a gas station and Xander blinked again. Then he grinned.
"We are so filling up here. We're filling up, and buying three extra gas canisters and carrying extra with us."
Dawn looked at the sign. The price of gas was a good twenty cents cheaper here than in Pennsylvania, and forty cheaper than any they'd seen in DC.
"God." Dawn rolled her neck. "You know the economy's in the shitter when you get excited by gas that costs less than two dollars a gallon."
"Hell yeah." Xander shifted gears as another driver cut them off from a side road at high speed. "Drivers here suck, though. Which way are we turning on First?"
Dawn listened a moment. "Left."
Xander shifted lanes, then blinked and shifted back to the right. "Sign says right lane."
"But we're turning left."
Xander shrugged and pulled into a looping off ramp type road. They pulled to a stop at the light, aimed to drive straight onto First Street. "Jug handle turn. I've heard of these."
Dawn shrugged, leaning her head back. "Okay, Willow, First Street, then what?"
"Drive to the end of the street and turn left. The field should be on your left, it's marked here as a baseball diamond."
"Cool."
Xander steered the car silently through the turns, then finally pulled to a stop up against a curb. The baseball diamond lay empty in front of them. "This it?"
"Yeah."
"So where's our girl?"
Dawn shrugged. The diamond was bordered on three sides by thick rows of trees and bushes. "Maybe she's hiding from something?"
Willow yawned again, starting a chain reaction as Dawn yawned in response, followed by Xander.
"That's all I've got for you. Good luck, guys, call me tomorrow, let me know how it goes."
"Okay." Dawn reached for the clasp of her seat belt. "Have fun in Ireland."
"I already am. Bye Dawn."
"Bye Willow."
The phone clicked off.
A group of five teenagers spilled out of the trees at the far end of the diamond, followed closely by a group of seven vampires. The teens, a rather motley crew dressed in crusty, patched clothing, carrying small bags, fought back with box cutter knives and cans of pepper spray, but were only barely keeping the vamps at bay.
Xander blinked at them. He glanced at the dashboard. Then he blinked at them again. He looked exhausted.
One of the teens, a girl with faded blue, thick dread locks, was obviously doing better against the vamps than her companions, though her movements were awkward and untrained. She threw a vampire three times her side back into the woods.
"There's our slayer."
Xander nodded.
"We should help her."
Xander nodded again. Then he slammed his foot into the accelorator, aiming the car at a pair of vampires menacing one of the teens.
The teenagers scattered, but the vamps, obviously newly risen and remarkably cocky, simply flicked the vehicle off.
The car slammed into the two vampires, the hood folding under the impact, the windshield cracking as they rolled up over the top of the car and down the back.
Dawn already had a pair of stakes and an axe ready from the back seat. As soon as Xander jerked the car to a stop, she leaped out, tossing Blue-Dreads one of her stakes. The girl shouted a thanks, and dispatched three of the vamps in rapid succession. She tried to stake a fourth, but missed the heart. Dawn rushed into the fight, axe swinging. The fourth vampire lost its head and crumpled to dust.
Xander backed the car back over the two vamps he'd hit, watching through the rearview mirror as steam rose from under the hood. The car whined and he ran them over two more times, then finally gave up and stopped working completely. Xander groaned, pulling out one of the swords, and climbed out of the car. He slammed the sword down onto the necks of the two writhing vampires, and smiled tiredly as they dusted.
Blue-Dreads had a hold on the last remaining vamp, and shouted to Dawn for assistance. Dawn grinned, and shoved her stake into its chest.
As the dust settled, the slayer glanced over her four friends. "Everyone okay?"
A series of nods, and Blue-Dreads smiled. A curly haired boy with an enormous, bushy beard, looked sullen.
"I lost my guitar somewhere, though."
Blue-Dreads rolled her eyes. "You dropped it back at the playground. We'll go get it, don't worry." She turned to Xander and Dawn, who were sullenly watching the steam pouring out of their car. "Thanks for the save, sorry 'bout the car though. I'm Nomad. Guitar boy here is Coyote," She pronounced it "Kai-yoat" as the boy waved, "And these are Artemis, Chickadee, and Sam."
Artemis was an Asian girl with roughly cropped, wild hair and a six inch scar across her nose and right cheek. Chickadee was a large, burly kid with a shaved head and a soul patch. Sam wore a stained scarf around the lower half of his face, his dishwater blonde hair hanging down into his eyes. Dawn shook their hands.
"I'm Dawn and this is Xander. Those guys you were fighting. . . ."
"Vampires." Sam nodded. His voice was strangely low and graveled, not muffled in the least by his scarf. "We know."
Xander nodded. He was too tired to be surprised by anything, including the strange group in front of him and their knowledge of vampires. "Well, Nomad is–"
"A slayer." Sam nodded again. Dawn blinked.
"How do you know about slayers?"
Artemis shrugged. "Sam here knows a lot about most things. But anyone with even a glimmer of magic felt that spell last year." She raised a finger, producing a small flame at the tip which she used to light up a hand-rolled cigarette. "We knew what Nomad was the moment she was called."
"Huh." Xander sat down on the curb. "Then you know there's a whole lot of them now, not just one?"
"We're a little fuzzy on the details, but, yeah." Chickadee's voice was surprisingly high-pitched. He slumped down into the road. "It's tough to hold onto weapons, though, even something as simple as a stake. Good thing you two came along."
Nomad was staring at Dawn and Xander, her hands on her hips. "How do you two know about slayers?"
"We're looking for them." Xander leaned back on his arms and yawned again. "Have been for a couple months now. Some friends of ours are running a school out in Cleveland, and we're trying to get as many girls to attend as possible, so they all have the training they need when they run into a situation like the one you guys were just in. The Helsing Institute." He gestured at the defunct car. "I've got a pamphlet in there, somewhere."
Coyote nodded. "Well, we can talk again in the morning. You two have a place to stay?"
Dawn shook her head. "We just got into town. I don't suppose there's any hotels around, preferably within walking distance?"
"In Phillipsburg?" Coyote laughed. "Nah. But a friend of ours lives down the road a couple blocks. We're crashing with him for the night before moving on." He glanced at Artemis and Chickadee, who nodded. Nomad looked a little wary, but shrugged. "You're welcome to join us."
"Sounds good." Xander shoved himself to his feet. "Lay on, Macduff."
"The girls and Chickadee can take you." Coyote's eyes slid over toward Sam. "I gotta get my guitar. Sam, you wanna walk with me for a bit?"
Sam nodded and turned toward the baseball diamond without another word. Coyote waved and followed.
Artemis, Chickadee, and Nomad exchanged glances. "Well, let's get going."
End part one