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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is a short story - six chapters. Let me know what you think if you enjoy - but it's definitely AU, sci-fi twist, and futuristic.
Chapter 1


It was the nightmare Spike could never stop having. He was stranded in a shiny bright world with blazing suns. It was so hot he had to wipe the sweat from his skin in layers. Lying on his back, naked in the grass, he watched a flock of blue birds soar across the sky.

But then another wave of heat tore through the valley and he rolled onto his side, covering his eyes with his hands. He needed to shield them from the sun.

After a while, he sat up and saw a row of trees on the edge of the horizon. Tall and leafy, they stretched across the landscape as far as the hills. And there were hills rising against the sky like crystal green castles bathed in sunlight.

Spike struggled to his knees and took a deep breath.

The air smelled like water, fresh, clear and sparkling. A river was nearby—and something more.

Buffy. She was standing on a precipice looking down on the water, her body, like the hills, stunning in sunlight and shadow.

Spike rose to his feet. She was only a short distance away. He could reach her if he tried.

But how was all of this bloody possible?

In this time, there was no clean water and nothing grew. Birds were extinct and the sun hadn't shone in seventy years. And he couldn’t lay in the sun. He was a vampire.

Then he was running, trying to reach her. But when he stood at the edge of the precipice, his skin suddenly was cold and wet, and the sun had disappeared.

Spike shivered so hard he couldn’t move.

But then he understood.

It wasn’t Buffy. It couldn’t be her. Was never her. Because. Like the rest of the world, she no longer existed.

###

Spike steered his vintage Jeep Cherokee to a halt in front of Club Zero and stepped out, cursing. It was noon and the rain was falling from the sky in buckets. Like always. Sighing, he shut his eyes and lifted his chin, letting the water soak his face.

“Bloody hell,” he groaned. The rain stung, its acid burning his skin. But he kept his head tilted up. He’d wipe off his face once he got inside. He needed to stand in the rain and feel the pain. It would help him remember his dream.

Or was it a nightmare.

It hadn’t felt like one. More like wishful thinking. But how sad and lonely was that? Here it was 2082, and he was still hanging onto ancient dreams and long-dead memories. Bloody Fool. There was no sun here, no birds, and no grass. LA was a wasteland, a sodding wet bog, cold and gray and lifeless. Well, except for a handful of humans who clung onto their existence like a mad dog with a bone. Vampires, on the other hand, were like mice in a cornfield. Everywhere.

Spike hugged the leather duster around his waist, checked both ways and hurried across the street. Navigating over the demolished road, he easily leaped over the pools of mud and chunks of concrete that littered Wilshire Blvd.

He stopped at the bottom of a staircase and nodded to the vampire emerging from the shadows. A broad-shouldered giant, he gestured to Spike, inviting him to make his way up the stairs.

Spike covered the steps three at a time and arrived at the top of the landing in seconds. Then he waited patiently as the vampire disconnected the security device and opened the back door to Club Zero’s second floor balcony. Spike edged by the vampire and gave him as friendly a greeting as he could manage, and walked into the Club.

Inside, Spike let the familiar feeling sweep over him. The place reminded him of The Bronze. Same set of stairs leading to a balcony overlooking the dance floor. Same stage directly across from the main entrance, and an alcove beneath the staircase near a long wooden bar. But the crowd wasn’t the same. The lean, ragged faces of the dead and the dying filled Club Zero, as it did every afternoon and every night. It was a lust club, a place where vampires and humans let themselves go mad for a few hours every day.

Spike stood at the banister of the balcony overlooking the dance floor and marveled at how much the world had changed since the last apocalypse in 2012. There was little to distinguish the humans from the vampires now. They all lived in a world without sunshine or fresh water, just a steady downpour of poison rain and gray days and black moonless nights. Even the darkest skin was ashen. And everyone was hungry. Ravenously so.

But Spike hadn’t come to Club Zero to analyze the customers or to reminisce about days long gone. He was looking for a girl.

Spike wiped the remaining water from his face and spotted an empty seat at the bar on the opposite side of the dance floor. He headed for it.

"Long time no see, Spike,” said Geronimo Jones, the lone bartender and sole owner of Club Zero. A small-boned, elegantly coiffed Japanese human, he liked vampires, liked having them for customers and loved having them in other ways more intimate.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think this wasn't a friendly visit." Geronimo had a knack for picking up on moods and must have sensed that Spike’s motives for being at Club Zero weren’t recreational.

"You wouldn't be here to shut down an old friend's club. Right, Detective?" He reached beneath the bar and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"Nope. Never bust a friend." Spike didn’t flinch at the word Detective. He’d never thought he’d end up a gumshoe, but after Wolfram and Hart was permanently shut down, he had to find something to do, and detective work was in his blood. Angel’s calling and all that rot. So he’d taken a job with the Culver City Police Department.

He took a swig of the Jack Daniels Geronimo had poured and choked back a cough. The shit wasn’t a month old. Just brown fermented rainwater dumped in a plastic bottle labeled to look like the original stuff. Geronimo must have hoped that Spike had forgotten Jack’s real burn. But Spike decided not to mention it and said, "Don't seem to be many new faces here tonight.”

"Hardly any new faces in all of LA, Spike."

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

"Should I keep the Jack handy?" Geronimo held the bottle over Spike’s glass.

"No, I'm good."

"You got that right." Geronimo craned forward, his eyes darting to Spike’s fitted pants. "And that pretty ass of yours is always good to see."

"Relax, Geronimo," Spike said, accustomed to the bartender’s advances. "Not in the mood for you this afternoon. Need something new." Spike had given in to Geronimo’s flirtations once or twice before, but today he was working.

Geronimo sighed. "A man can always hope." Looking disappointed, he turned and headed toward the other end of the bar. Then abruptly he swung back and faced Spike, using the bottle of Jack as a pointer. "Check out the fresh eye candy,” he said.

Standing in the middle of a group of humans and vampires was a new face. A girl, or young woman, long blonde hair, still dripping from the rain. About five feet two inches tall, wearing all black. A super-short shiny skirt, thick dark tights, thigh-high black plastic boots and a black waist-length jacket that looked like leather.

Spike titled his head to the side. "Drop the bottle Geronimo. No need to be obvious."

"If I swung that way, I'd fuck her." Geronimo raised an eyebrow. "She’s pretty."

Spike swallowed. "Yeah, she’s okay."

"Looks like your type."

"You have no understanding of my type, mate.”

Geronimo grunted. "She’s a vampire."

Spike cleared his throat. He hadn’t sensed that. Too busy lost in a memory. "That’s a bloody shame."

Geronimo winked. “Maybe she’s the one you’re looking for?”

“Yeah, the chosen one,” Spike muttered. “Except she’s a vampire now.”

At that moment the girl looked at him from across the bar. He nodded and gave her one of his sexy grins. She responded in kind, excused herself from the group and headed in his direction.

"Pour me another drink," Spike instructed Geronimo. He gulped it down while keeping an eye on her, and the way her pants clung to her shapely, lithe body. And the way the nipples of her perky breasts pushed delicately through the white blouse beneath her jacket. All of her was familiar. Too damn familiar.

Bloody hell. If he could breathe, he would have passed out.





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