On Patrol.
It has a nice ring to it. A nice, safe, ring. Like, any time you want you could call back up and say, help, I'm about to be eviscerated, or skinned, or the likes, and expect that people might actually come to your rescue.
Then, there's Out After Dark.
And that's where we are.
"There's a guy. In the bushes."
Giles looks at me, eyebrow raised. "Um. Buffy. Are you--"
I sigh impatiently. "Yes, Giles, there's a dude in the bushes."
I move closer to them, nothing tingling to suggest they're vampires... but you never can be too careful. I peer into the gloom behind all these leaves, and try and figure out what they're doing. I say, "With - another dude. And a dead dog. Oh, ew."
Oh, ew.
The bigger one stands up, starts to open his mouth. I let a roundhouse kick fly, then a left hook. I'm just getting started when he puts his hands up, laying on his back, legs spread. He says in a deep, low voice, "Hello, gorgeous. What can we do for you?"
I haven't even done enough work to start panting. I toss my head back to get rid of the few stray hairs in my face, and point my finger. In a stern voice, I tell him, "I don't know what your problem is, or why you're going around doing--" and then my eyes stray to the animal on the ground beside him.
I feel my stomach heave. "Oh, EW... where's it's head?"
The smaller man, until now quiet, standing behind his friend, says, "Your guess is as good as ours, sister."
Giles comes from behind me, and says hesitantly, "I hate to point this out, but, ah, if you've got the dog, then normally one would assume responsibility for the head as well..."
The guy on the ground keeps sitting in the soft dirt, seemingly not minding the compromising position he's in. His legs stay spread, and that feral grin stays plastered on his mouth. He says in that same slow drawl, "We didn't off the dog. Adebisi did." He shrugs, and looks at the other man for a moment. "Or Vern, maybe. And left it on our lawn."
I say to Giles, "Someone's been studying their 'how to be a good stalker' manual."
We share a moment of silence.
The other guy keeps doing what they were doing when we interrupted them - digging in the ground. He chuckles, and says lightly, "Vern then."
I get the feeling that there is eons and miles I'm missing, here. Now that we've established that neither of them is too eager to kill either of us, Giles feels safe enough to answer me with, "We still don't know that they didn't do it themselves--"
I say, "Okay, let's forget about the dog for now. Cute dog. Being buried. Nothing more we can do." I turn to the guy still standing, who's humming and digging in the ground with a rusty shovel. The guy on the ground is a little... distracting, and so I look at him when I say, "Who are you guys?"
He stops digging, and I see a muscle in his neck twitch, ever so slightly. His face turns up to mine - it's the first time he's looked directly at me since we found them, and I find myself staring into the pit of something deep and black and endless.
I put my gaze back on the guy on the ground. He says, pointing to himself and then the other man, "Keller, Beecher." He smiles at me even more coldly than before. "We're more of the dead, honey."
Giles says sarcastically, "Oh, perfect. Sunnydale doesn't have nearly enough of those."
I mutter more to myself than to Giles, "I'd say inmate. They don't feel like vampires."
The man identified as Beecher throws down his shovel suddenly, and we all jump - Keller included. It makes a dull thunk as it hits the mound of dirt. He grabs the dog, getting his hands all bloody, and throws him in the hole with a sick, wet, thwack. He lifts his head, and bares his quite human teeth at me, then says, "They don't feel like you, either."