At this time of the morning, the East Hills Teen Center was quiet and the street seemed to be deserted. Clark found a parking spot nearby, and Lois slipped out of the rental easily.
Jimmy had insisted on coming, even though they really didn’t need him. There had been depressingly little to photograph on this trip, other than the gaping wound the Sunnydale crater had left in the landscape, and the general public had probably gotten tired of those images already.
From what Lois had seen on CNN this morning, news of the war and the Kobe Bryant case had been seen as more interesting that the story of 30,000 people being displaced. She and Clark had both been sending in stories regularly, and her editor seemed pleased with their output, but there were so many things they were discovering that couldn’t be written about without absolute proof.
Lois had worked too hard for her reputation as a reporter to be demoted to the tabloids.
Clark tried the door, which was unlocked. He stepped inside, and Lois followed. Jimmy trailed along behind, with his camera out and ready.
Lois had barely noticed the place before, except to notice that it seemed to be well run, but this time she took a closer look. The walls were painted a pleasant pinkish color with a white trim. The furniture was older, but well preserved.
Anne was waiting for them. A slender, blonde girl, her youth struck Lois again. She didn’t look old enough to be the director of a teen center this size. She looked like she should be one of the clients instead. She was wearing jeans and a blouse that left part of her stomach showing.
“I’m only talking to you because Xavier vouched for you.” Anne said. “I haven’t had much luck with the press.”
She gestured for them to sit down on a nearby couch, while she took a chair. Sitting between Clark and Jimmy, Lois was uncomfortably aware of Clark’s warmth by his side.
At least Anne hadn’t insisted on sitting next to Clark. The whole flirtation thing had been tiresome.
“I can’t imagine that a place like this would get bad press,” Clark said.
“Try no press,” Anne said. “The news isn’t about people doing good things to help people, and so places like this get swept under the rug.”
It was true, and Lois didn’t have anything to say to that.
“I’m sure we can write a small article about this place. It’ll get run in Metropolis, but it might get picked up by the Associated Press.” Clark said.
Anne smiled slightly. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“So do you have a lot of refugees from Sunnydale here?” Lois asked. “Writing the story for our editor might make more sense if this is part of the bigger Sunnydale issue.”
Anne nodded. “I’m a refugee myself, although I haven’t been in Sunnydale in six years. You’d be surprised how many of the homeless kids around here come from there.”
“I’m sure that having come from that background gives you a unique insight into helping hose kids.”
“You mean holding them at night when they have nightmares?” Anne shook her head. “Sunnydale doesn’t have a monopoly on that. I spent two years on the streets here in L.A. and it’s scarier here that Sunnydale ever was…except once or twice, I guess.”
Lois glanced at Clark and said, “We’re not saying…”
“I get it. This is the first time you’ve been exposed to the supernatural, and of course you are interested.” Anne shook her head. “Xavier told me what you did for his uncle at the ranch, and I can appreciate that.”
“It wasn’t anything,” Lois said, feeling her cheeks flushing. She hated when people tried to make the story about her.
“But the truth is, there are monsters every bit as scary as the ones that came out of Sunnydale. We see them every day. Some of these kids had to live with them for their whole lives until they finally got out.”
“You aren’t advocating kids running away from home,” Lois said.
“Children don’t leave their parents unless they don’t see any other way out. When you grow up without people you can trust, it damages you as a human being. It leaves you empty and anxious to fill the void.”
Lois had a sudden image of her mother drinking in the dark by herself, of her father leaving with yet another of his bimbos. She’d grown up learning that she’d never be able to trust anyone other than herself, and it had left her with a certain void. She’d tried to fill it with work, desperately seeking the approval of Perry, who was the closest thing she had to a father figure.
Each Kerth had been just another reminder that all the awards in the world wouldn’t make up for the closeness that she’d craved.
“I’m sure you do good work here” Lois said. “But the story right now is Sunnydale. People are interested in hearing from the survivors.”
Anne sighed. “The kids here are all on their own. The kids from Sunnydale are still a little shell shocked. Most of them don’t have families any more. A few of them still hope to be reunited from people they’ve gotten separated from.”
“We might be able to help with that,” Clark said, glancing at Lois.
Running a column in the Los Angeles paper would have to go through Perry, but Lois thought they might be able to manage it, even if they had to go through the Associated Press.
“What about you,” Clark said. “You’ve been through all of this. I’m sure it’s given you some insights into what it’s like to grow up in Sunnydale.”
Clark smiled, and something twisted inside Lois when she saw Anne responding to that.
Didn’t she realize that Clark wasn’t free to pursue a romance in this part of the country? He had responsibilities back in Metropolis, even if he’d only just begun the job.
“I don’t think it was much different than growing up any other place,” Anne said. “It had its secrets…but people didn’t talk about them. There was an unspoken agreement I guess that people just didn’t talk about that sort of thing in public. It didn’t keep the kids from whispering sometimes.”
“You didn’t notice all the people disappearing,” Lois asked.
“They always had explanations. Bobby was attacked by a drug gang. Billy had a barbeque accident. Joe was attacked by wild dogs. Mostly the adults were smart enough to stay in at night, and they kept the kids with them.”
“So it was mostly the teenagers who were disappearing,” Lois said.
“Some of them were never accounted for, and people just assumed that they’d run away to Los Angeles or got hooked on drugs.”
“But so many kids?” Lois shook her head. “It’s hard to believe that people can be so blind.”
“What are the odds of getting mugged in Metropolis,” Anne asked. “I’m sure it’s something that most people don’t go through at all. But there’s always a chance that it could happen, and if you make stupid choices, your chances of getting victimized go way up. Mostly people don’t think about it.”
Anne shook her head. “We ignore out fears because we can’t do anything else. Otherwise we’d be paralyzed and wouldn’t be able to do anything. Most people in Sunnydale lived normal lives by day. They stayed in at night, and anyone unlucky enough to get caught out was just asking for whatever trouble they found.”
“So you didn’t know about the monsters by the time you got to be a teenager?”
“We knew. Most people just ignored it, but some people bought into the whole scene. I got involved with a group of people who bought into the whole Anne Rice thing. Vampires as misunderstood loners.” Anne shook her head. “We were fools, playacting at being monsters to keep the fear away.”
“I’m assuming that things didn’t go well,” Lois said. It was difficult for her to see the things she’d seen as lonely and misunderstood. What she’d seen had been the worst that humanity had to offer.
The feelings they left in the pit of her stomach were pure evil.
“Someone locked us in with those things,” Anne said bleakly. “I saw some of my best friends die.”
Jimmy had been sitting quietly beside Lois. He spoke suddenly. “I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
“It’s like having the heart ripped out of your chest, “Anne said. “I dropped out of school, joint a cult, changed my name.”
“How did you get away if you were locked in?” Lois asked suddenly.
Anne smiled. “Not everyone in Sunnydale was clueless. There were some good people fighting the good fight.”
Lois straightened. This was the first she’d heard of this. “You wouldn’t happen to have their names, would you?”
Anne’s smile turned frosty. “You think I’d turn over someone who saved my life more than once?”
“We aren’t the police,” Lois said. “We just want to talk with them.”
Shaking her head, Anne said, “Even if I was willing to give up the names, I’m not sure they got out of Sunnydale. I’d expect that they’d have been there until the very end.”
“So you don’t believe the official line about it being undiscovered cave systems beneath the city collapsing?” Clark asked quietly.
Anne laughed shortly. “What are the odds of the whole city evacuating at once three days before it collapsed. There were no evacuation orders, no alarms, and no warnings on television. Everybody just decided to get up and leave.”
“Did the kids say why they left?” Lois asked.
“They said they had a sense of impending doom, a feeling that if they stayed they were going to die.” Anne rose to her feet. “I can let you interview some of them if you promise to be gentle.”
“Did you know a woman named Buffy Summers?” Lois asked.
Anne froze, and there was a strange, trapped look in her eyes.
“The last I heard, she died back in 2001,” she said at last. “She was a good person, no matter what anybody else says.”
“The senior class gave her an award for being class protector,” Lois said.
Anne’s face relaxed and she smiled wistfully. “She was like that.”
As she stepped away to find some of the teenagers, Lois turned to Jimmy. “When we get back, I want you to find out everything you can about Buffy Summers.”
At Clark’s expression, she said, “The monks were murdered by a woman in 2001. Buffy Summers, noted class protector, died in 2001. Maybe there’s a connection.”
“A lot of people died in Sunnydale in 2001,” Jimmy said. “Apparently it was the hip thing to do in school that year.”
“I have a hunch,” Lois said. “I think you’d have to be able to take care of yourself pretty well to protect anyone in Sunnydale.”
There wasn’t any more time for conversation as Anne brought the first of the interviewees.
************
“Didn’t get the date?” Lois asked, seeing Jimmy’s crestfallen expression.
“She shot me down,” Jimmy said. “Said I remind her of a younger brother.”
“You’re at least as old as she is,” Lois said irritably.
“Not in street years, whatever that is.”
“It’s a little like dog years,” Lois said. “Trust me. I know a bi- Clark! Hey!”
Clark emerged from the shelter and smiled a little at her. “Anne gave me a list of some of the other shelters housing Sunnydale people. I’d like to hit some of them before we get back.”
“That’s not all she gave him,” Jimmy mumbled under his breathe.
Clark looked up sharply, and Lois wondered whether he could hear what Jimmy had just said. Jimmy was standing next to her, and even with her newly improved hearing, she could barely hear what he had said.
“We should drop Jimmy off at a place with a wi-fi connection,” Lois said, “So he can get started on that Buffy Summers research.”
“As long as it’s not the same library I was at before. I’ve got some issues with it.”
“We’ll come and get you before dark,” Lois assured him.
Jimmy sighed, and then said, “Well, maybe I can see the girl in the leather pants again.”
“Her name is Faith,” Lois said absently.
When Jimmy stared at her, she said, “I didn’t tell you? She came by to check on you after you got hurt.”
Jimmy grinned. “Hey, at least some girls like me.”
“I wish I could talk to her again. She had some pretty interesting things to say about Sunnydale.”
Whether Lois could believe them or not was another thing. Places where the walls between the worlds got thin? Government conspiracies? Still, she’d been more open than anybody else in this case, and Lois had the feeling that she knew a lot more.”
Jimmy frowned. “What are the odds that a girl like that was there just to see me?”
“Well, she went to a lot of effort to save you…” Lois said.
“I could see her calling to check on me…”
“They wouldn’t give the information out over the phone,” Lois said. She pulled open the back door of the rental and gestured for him to get in.
He did and Lois slipped into her own seat a moment later.
Jimmy leaned forward. “Anne said that her friends would be among the last people out of Sunnydale.”
“You think Anne knows Faith? That would be a huge coincidence,” Lois said.
“I doubt that everybody who does that sort of thing knows each other,” Jimmy said. “But they are probably similar sorts of people.”
“The sort of people who would stay in a town that everybody else was terrified to stay in, trying to stop whatever was happening.”
“Who says all her friends got out in one piece?” Jimmy said slowly.
Lois froze for a moment. “You mean you think that she took you to a hospital where some of her friends were staying?”
“The library was within easy walking distance of the hospital,” Jimmy said. “It’s the closest one by a long shot.”
“So she might still be there,” Clark said, pulling out of the parking space and into the street. “I guess we’ll be making a detour.”
Lois glanced back at Jimmy, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat. He’d done very well. She’d have felt better if she’d thought he was happy about such brilliant detective work instead of the more likely scenario.
More likely, he was happy about the chance to see leather pants again.
