It was around 7:00 p.m. when they arrived in Salt Lake City. They decided to stop at a diner they saw to get something to eat so they pulled into the parking lot. "Just remember--" Giles said as they all got out of the Winnebago. He had woken up just an hour before, just a little surprised that Cordelia had managed to get them there. No one had mentioned to him the fact they had gotten lost. Giles finished his thought: "No Mormon jokes, and that means you, Xander."
The warned boy opened the door, allowing them all inside.
The diner was basically a bar, a few tables and a kitchen which appeared to be rather dirty. Actually, the entire diner appeared to be rather dirty and unsanitary. There was a rather thick layer of dirt on the walls and on the floors, and the dishes didn't appear entirely clean either. They all were reconsidering eating there but Xander made his way over to the hostess.
The young man beamed at the woman. "Hi, my three friends, my two wives and I would like a table." His voice was loud, and his arms were suddenly around Cordelia and Willow. Angel promptly grabbed him and put him in the same headlock he had used on Giles at the casino.
"Forgive my friend, he hasn't taken his medication lately. He's got this psychological condition where he thinks he's funny when he's not." Angel said quickly.
The hostess, who was quite confused at this point, pointed them to table. Angel all but shoved Xander into the chair. "Now sit down and shut up." Angel hissed under his breath.
"Okay, okay. Jeez, spaz much, Angel." Xander said, holding his hands up in surrender.
The hostess gave them menus and then walked away.
"So, what are you going to order, Angel?" the junior boy asked sarcastically.
"I can eat food, you know, Xander." Angel looked over the menu. "Though I don't know if I would classify any of this in the category of edible food, at least not for me."
"It sounds like school food; meatloaf surprise, macaroni surprise. Dare I ask what the surprise is?" Willow inquired.
Xander shook his head once. "That's a question best left to the state health inspectors. Uh, guys, do we actually want to eat here?"
"I'm really hungry. I think I'll take the health risk." Buffy responded, "after all--" She was interrupted by a loud crack as Willow's shoe hit the floor. They all looked over to see that Willow had killed a large cockroach with her shoe. "I'm not really hungry anymore." Buffy whispered, turning pale. "I'm now about to be sick."
"Do you think there's a McDonald's around here?" Xander asked as he stood up from the table slowly. Everyone followed his lead and stood up and went to the door quickly as fast as they could back to the Winnebago.
*******
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting inside of a McDonald's. Everyone munched happily on the greasy, fatty food-- except for Angel, who flat out refused to eat fast food.
"Come on, Angel, it's not like you're going to die of a heart attack." Buffy attempted to force a French fry onto her unwilling creature of the night boyfriend.
Since Angel's senses were more heightened than the average human's, he could only eat certain things without gagging. He could taste grease, salt, fat, pepper and sugar or whatever the food was prepared in rather strongly. The smell alone of the fast food was enough to make him shudder.
The vampire motioned to the Value Meal. "How can you eat all of that and stay so thin?" He tried a compliment, hoping to get his girlfriend's mind off of feeding him that way. She was undaunted. Angel reluctantly accepted the fry with one hand. He hesitantly put it into his mouth and chewed. He looked like he was about to be sick but swallowed the fry anyway. He made a disapproving face and resorted to sarcasm. "Nothing like the taste of the grease."
"For a vampire, you're really picky about what you eat." Xander commented as he took a bite out of his Big Mac.
Angel turned away in disgust. That mortal boy was eating the sandwich in a most disgusting fashion. "Xander, talking while your mouth is full is obnoxious and rude. Please refrain from doing it."
Giles, the cultured Englishman, nodded in agreement.
The vampire continued to talk. "The reason I'm picky is because I can taste the fat and the grease about fifty times better than you can. It would be the equivalent of you..." He thought for a second to perfect an analogy. "...drinking a spoonful of vegetable oil and lard."
Xander rolled his eyes but continued eating.
When Buffy handed Angel her milk shake, he sighed and took a sip of it just to make her happy.
"So, how long are we planning to stay at the Corn Palace?" The Slayer asked with a grin as she watched Angel attempting to drink the chocolate shake.
"We're not even there yet and you already want to leave!" Xander protested between a mouthful of Willow's fries.
"Jeez, take it personally, why don't you? I retract the question." Buffy faced Giles. "Okay, change of subject. We're going to drive all night?"
"Angel's going to drive all night," the Watcher responded. "We should get to Devil's Tower by tomorrow afternoon, provided nothing goes wrong. And--I just cursed it, didn't I?"
The entire group nodded simultaneously. "Yep," they all said in unison.
******
After they finished eating, they went back to the automobile with Angel in the driver's seat. It had started to rain heavily, but since they were all comfortable and warm inside of the Winnebago, no one really paid it much attention.
Buffy was once again in the passenger's seat beside Angel. She read a magazine while Angel fumbled with the radio controls. Once they had gotten out of the city, they had lost most signals except for the oldies, country, and the talk radio stations, all of which Buffy didn't care for.
"Just give it up, Angel," Willow called from the back. She was sitting at the table, adding to her letter to Oz about the experiences in Salt Lake City.
While Cordy sorted her make-up box by alphabetical order, Xander sat beside her on the couch and burst into song. "Ninety-nine bottles of blood on the wall. Ninety-nine bottles of blood. Take one down, pass it to Angel. Ninety-eight...." His song ended when Angel growled.
"Xander, if you start singing again, so help me, I'm going to break your legs." Angel added a hiss.
"It's raining cats and dogs out there," Willow commented to break the tension between the two guys.
Giles looked up from his demon book and looked out the window. "Perhaps we should have spent the night in Salt Lake City, but I'm sure everything will be fine."
As soon as these words were spoken, there was a loud bang. Angel pulled the Winnebago over to the side of the road and stopped it. Apparently, the front passenger's side tire had just blown out.
Xander laughed. "You're just jinxing the hell out of this trip, aren't you, Giles?"
Angel spoke loudly in Latin.
Giles winced slightly, being the only person who could understand the vampire's angry words.
"Well, at least we have a spare tire." Xander noted the distraught look on his girlfriend's face and groaned. "We don't have a spare tire, do we?"
Cordelia's eyes were focused on the ground. "Well, we do, it just has no air in it. Before we left, I noticed it was really low on air but I sort of forgot to fill it--"
"Someone's going to have to walk to the last town we passed to a gas station." Willow's suggestion made everyone glance around.
"I nominate Buffy," Cordelia offered. "If there are any vampires or demons or anything else out there, she'll be able to handle them."
Buffy's jaw dropped and she shook her head. She was not about to willingly go out into the rain by herself to find help. "No way! There aren't any vampires out there anyway!"
Xander peered at Angel and said under his breath, "Well, there's one."
"I'll go." The immortal stood up from the driver's seat and moved to the back. "At least we know I won't catch a cold." Angel pulled his coat out of the closet and slipped it on over his shoulders.
"I'm going with you," Buffy said firmly. She wasn't going to willingly go out in the rain *alone*...but she didn't want Angel to go alone either. She got her coat and umbrella out of the closet before Angel could protest. "Case closed, I'm going with you, Angel. End of discussion."
Angel smiled slightly. "Okay, we're going for help. You guys sit tight and try to stay warm."
"I see a lot of rescuing getting done with just the two of you." Xander put his hands on his hips. "You'll probably stop half way and start making out at the road side."
"Then come with us," Buffy suggested, slightly offended that her friend didn't have faith in her or Angel to control their lust for the sake of the entire group.
Xander grabbed his flashlight and jacket. "Come on, Cordelia. This is your fault, you gotta come out of pure principle." Cordelia squealed in protest but Xander handed her a coat and all but forced her out the door into the rain.
With that, the four of oh so willing members of the group were off.
******
Buffy and Angel huddled under one umbrella and Xander and Cordelia huddled under another while holding the flashlight. Cordelia began to whine about fifteen minutes into the journey. "My feet hurt."
"We've only walked like a mile!" Xander rolled his eyes while Angel and Buffy exchanged amused glances.
Cordelia shrugged, the frown on her face growing at Xander's apparent lack of concern for her. "It feels like ten miles in these shoes!"
Suddenly, through the rain, she heard the howling of an animal. "What was that!?" She moved the flashlight all around, looking for the source of the sound.
"It's probably just a coyote," guessed Angel. "It won't hurt you. "It's probably more scared of you than you are of it." Without warning, he let out a loud, deep bellowing growl to scare the animal away. It apparently worked because the howling ended. "There, it's gone. Do you feel better now?" Angel asked calmly...or at least with the illusion of being calm. Cordelia's complaining was getting on his nerves and everyone else's.
"Thank you, Angel. It's nice to know *one* person cares about me." Cordelia threw an angry glare in Xander's direction which he ignored.
Buffy began to worry. "Has anyone seen a sign yet telling us how much farther we have to go?" Angel shook his head as he tightened his grip around Buffy's shoulder to keep her warm. He wrapped the flap of his coat around her so she was huddled beside him, like a mother bird with its wing wrapped around a baby bird. "We probably should have looked at the map before we left."
The Slayer shook her head before resting it on Angel's shoulder and wrapping her arms around his stomach. "It wouldn't have mattered. Of course, what really would have mattered would have been if Cordelia had used all the sense God gave a goldfish and filled that spare tire. That could have mattered a little."
This got a laugh from Angel and Xander, who both tried to silence their giggles but were unable to.
"Don't start with me, Buffy!" Cordelia shouted angrily. "I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm hungry, my feet hurt, my mascara is running, I'm surrounded by wild animals, and on top of all of that, I'm having a bad hair day!"
"So," Xander brought up casually, "does anyone want to play Twenty Questions?"
Everyone turned and stared at him for a brief moment, shocked that he would both ask such a question at such a time, or that the question would be that stupid. "No!"
That didn't phase the Harris boy. "Okay. How about we tell scary stories to pass the time until we find a phone or a town or something?"
Angel couldn't help but scoff. "Xander, our lives are scary stories. What story do you plan on telling that would frighten a vampire, a vampire slayer and a person who has been stalked by an invisible girl and has witnessed and been involved in fights with vampires, demons and the undead?"
Xander was silent for a minute as he thought. Then he started, "There once was a man with a hook for a hand--"
This got a loud groan from the others.
"Wait a minute." Cordelia's voice was soft for a moment. "Does this remind anyone of a horror movie? I mean, the car breaks down and then the four unsuspecting travelers try to go to the nearest town to get help--"
Buffy glanced at Angel and giggled. "Maybe that does sound like a horror movie plot. I will give you that. But I doubt in the movies they have a Slayer or a vampire as one of the unsuspecting travelers." She sighed. "We'll be fine as soon as we get out of the rain and get dry."
"We aren't living a horror movie," Angel added. "We can take care of ourselves. You're just scaring yourself, Cordelia." He noted the nearby sign. "Fifteen miles to the nearest town." He traded looks with Buffy. They had no doubt that they could make the distance, but they knew they couldn't go for fifteen miles with Cordelia's complaining.
"We could hitchhike," Buffy suggested. They were on a highway and they had seen a few cars since they had been walking so it was a viable option, and more practical than walking for fifteen more miles.
Cordelia shivered. "Would now be a good time to mention the movie where the people tried to hitchhike but were picked up by a serial killer who decapitated them and left their corpses on the side of the road in the middle of no where?"
The lights of a car came towards them as Buffy and Xander stuck out their thumbs and shouted, "Shut up, Cordelia!"
The pick-up truck pulled over to the side of the road. The driver rolled down the window. He was in his late forties with black hair and black eyes. "Need a ride?"
Cordelia shook her head. "No, we don't. Thanks anyway."
The man shrugged and pulled away from the side of the road.
Cordelia's acquaintances stared at her, pelting her with looks of anger and shock. She put on her innocent face. "He looked like a serial killer."
"Cordelia," Angel said as calmly as he possibly could, "here's a little test. Does Buffy look like a serial killer?"
Cordelia shook her head.
"Does Xander?"
Again, she shook her head.
"Do I?"
The brunette girl shook her head once again.
Angel smirked. "I may not look like it but I am, aren't I? I killed people for about a hundred and forty years or so, give or take. This just goes to show you can't tell a serial killer just by looking at them!"
"Well, so-o-orry for probably saving our lives." Cordelia's tone was cold as ice.
Angel didn't even dignify that comment with a response. He simply turned back to Buffy and let out a soft sigh of frustration.
When another car approached, they stuck out their thumbs again and the car stopped. It was a nice new blue van and in the driver's seat was an attractive blonde man in his late twenties. "Where to?" he asked kindly.
Cordelia apparently didn't think he looked like a serial killer because she immediately leaned over to speak with him through the window. "We want to go to the nearest town, but our car has a flat and we don't have a spare."
The man motioned for them to get in. Cordelia, Buffy, and Xander smushed into the back while Angel got in the front. The man pulled away from the side of the road and started driving to town as he declared, "My name is Eric by the way." His face offered a kind smile.
The May Queen smiled back. "I'm Cordelia, that's Buffy, Xander and that's Angel."
By the looks on their faces, Xander could tell both Buffy and Angel could sense that something was very, very wrong.
"What brings you folks out this way?" Eric asked politely.
"A trip. We're going to South Dakota." Cordelia replied. "Where are you heading?"
"California."
"Where in California?" Buffy asked, suspicious of their driver for reasons she couldn't explain.
"A little town called Sunnydale."