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Another dimension. A dimension of sight, sound, and alternate television programming. Welcome to Veronica Mars...and welcome to the Twilight Zone.
What if 'Veronica Mars' were written by...
...Wes Craven?
"Oh, no, Veronica," said Logan, smiling wickedly. "You only thought that I'd turned to the side of good. But in actuality, all of this, no matter how improbable it seems, was my doing. Duncan was innocent--how does it feel to have the blood of an innocent man staining your pretty hands? I knew you'd kill him for me, if I pushed you."
"I don't understand," Veronica whispered.
Logan shook his head. "Oh, this started long before you moved to Neptune. I knew that Lilly Kane had to die, because of what her family had done to mine."
"Logan, I don't..."
"Without them, I would have had the lead in the Christmas pageant! Me! But that damn Lilly told the teacher I'd been looking up her dress, and so I was cast down to the role of second shepherd. My dreams of the theater died that day, and for what? FOR WHAT? The sacred crotch of Lilly Kane. I vowed it would be mine, and that I'd break everything she'd ever loved. So it began when I framed your mother and Jake Kane for an affair that had been your mother and me all along..."
...Robin Cook?
The inertia of the flung object transmuted itself into physical trauma in an instant, shattering bone and bursting blood vessels which died too quickly for bruising to fully set in. Lilly Kane's skull was fractured in a fractal starburst-pattern that would have been beautiful, had it been etched someplace other than in human flesh and bone. Her brain bowed and then burst in response to the pressure, cell walls collapsing in a cascade of dying information that raced to the grave even faster than the body which had supported them. She was dimly aware of names and places slipping away from her, pulled down into the whirlpool of the mid-occipital basilar fracture that was perilously close to terminating her brief span upon this planet.
Lilly Kane was under attack by gravity, mass and the frailty of the human form; three enemies who were as impersonal and cold as the one who had created the kinetic force which struck that final hammer blow was not...
...Laurell K. Hamilton?
Veronica's gown pooled on the ground in a swirl of red velvet and black satin that glimmered in the moonlight pouring through the bedroom window. That same moonlight pooled across her skin, coaxing starlit glimmers from the corngold tangle of her hair. Eyes fixed on the figure in the bed in front of her, she slowly lowered her hands, tracing the edges of her body like roadways on the map of some foreign land.
"I don't know why I'm here," she whispered. "I don't even like you." She could almost smell him, or at least the idea of him; all hot salt and bitter lime, pale masculine beauty outlined by the same moonlight that left her so bemused.
Troy smiled darkly. "I don't see why that matters." He raised his hand, gesturing her forward.
Heart pounding like the beat outside a downtown club, Veronica approached the bed.
...Stephen King?
"I didn't kill her," Duncan said, looking at Veronica. Try as she might, she only saw sincerity in his eyes. "I know you don't believe me, but my parents were just trying to protect me. From what would happen if I tried to tell the truth."
"The truth?" Veronica said. "Duncan, if you don't tell me..."
"I'll go to jail. I know. But how is that worse than saying that a creature made of smoke rose out of the drain and cracked Lilly's skull open?" He was starting to laugh now, a thin, whining sound that ran underneath his words. Veronica realized with dawning horror that he wasn't aware that he was doing it. "They did an autopsy, but they didn't weigh her brain, Veronica, it was eating her brain when it heard me screaming and ran. And do you know what the worst part is?"
"What?" she asked, even though she wished she didn't have to. Whatever he said, she knew that she didn't want to hear it.
"It spoke. It said 'tak, can-toi en can-tak', and I knew. I knew..."
"Knew what, Duncan?"
He smiled, the sweet, almost innocent smile of the terminally insane. "I knew that it was coming back for me. It's almost here, Veronica." What was that sound? That distant, sloshing, sucking sound? "It's coming.
"Better run."
...Tom Clancy?
Cliff McCormack closed his briefcase with a snap, aware of the stares being directed towards him by the rest of the court. "The Council rests, your Honor," he said, each word carrying crisp and clear as he addressed the bench. He had done his best. He had proven his case. Now justice would prevail.
At the back of the courtroom, he knew that his every move was watched by Veronica, the golden-haired wunderkind daughter of his old friend and colleague, Keith Mars, who had been driven out of town when he attracted the attention of the deadly Internet mafia, locally operated by none other than the Big Fish himself, Jake Kane. Cliff was going to take him down, one day, and avenge Keith for all the damage that had been done in his name. It wasn't romantic between him and Veronica; it was more of a mentor/student relationship, with his wise guidance allowing her to learn the finer points of law and justice.
Justice was a mistress who allowed no other women to enter his life, and he understood that fact.
...Joss Whedon?
"I thought you loved me, Logan. I don't understand."
"Sometimes there isn't a choice, Veronica. I have a destiny; I have a purpose; and that destiny and that purpose begin and end very far away from Neptune." He let his hand rest gently against the curve of her cheek. "You're so beautiful. But I must prove myself to earn you."
"But why can't I come with you?"
"Stay here. Be happy. Start a new life without me. And then if one day, you turn around, and I'm standing behind you..."
"I'll wait, Logan. I'll wait."
He leaned forward and kissed her for the final time, tasting Neptune High, tasting his childhood, and yes, tasting Lilly for one final time, all of them caught like spices in the cherry-vanilla of her lip gloss. When he pulled away, he stepped backwards, removing his hand from her face.
"You'll try."
...Hannah Barbera?
"This may look like my mother, but the real murderer is..." Veronica reached over, pulling the blonde wig and mask off the bound figure's head, revealing the well-known and nationally beloved features of none other than: "Aaron Echolls!" A gasp ran through the crowd.
"But how did you know?" demanded a reporter, summoned by Wallace's false report of a tourist-revenue-generating sea monster sighting off the Neptune coast.
"It began when, during a routine visit to the Echolls household, I spotted six cans of glow-in-the-dark spray paint in a shoe box in the front hall closet. As everyone knows, it was the unseasonal sightings of the mysterious Ghost of Neptune High that drew traffic away from the Kane Mansion on the night of the murder. Further examination proved that Lilly was actually a minor shareholder in a local soda company, preventing Aaron from acquiring controlling interest when she refused to give in to his desires to retire their current fruit-flavored lines and begin a new trend in herbal sodas. Unable to get what he wanted through ethical means, he began to plan her death--"
...Terry Pratchett?
Death, Lilly had discovered, was really quite dull once the gentleman with the scythe tired of attempting to jolly you along. Being jollied had never sat very well with her when she was amongst the living, and she'd be damned before she tolerated it as a ghost. "Death is too important to be dictated by men without lips," she'd said, and that was that.
None of which did anything about the mind-numbing boredom, or the fact that she was starting to regard bus accidents as happening night spots where a girl could find a little fun. At least until ol' Boney showed up and carted all the interesting boys away to the afterlife.
Life wasn't after 'til it was over, that's what she always said*, and she refused to let anything as little as death--and a sucking head wound--get in her way. She just needed to find a good spectral hair salon.
And maybe some new shoes.
(*At least, that was what she always said now that it applied to her. Like many of the formerly alive**, Lilly Kane had never troubled herself particularly with the needs of the dead before it became a personal matter. Being haunted by the ghosts of her goldfish now that she was part of their 'school' was tolerable, and even reasonably pretty. She just hoped that she could convince Molly to move on before Duncan did something stupid, dropped by for a visit, and found out what Daddy meant when he said he took Duncan's dog to 'a beautiful farm'. She was pretty sure most farm dogs needed all four legs. Attached.)
(**The battle between those who believe 'formerly alive' is less insulting than 'recently deceased' has gone on for several years now, thus proving that death doesn't stop people being human.)
...William Shakespeare?
VERONICA:
She was the finest flower of these shores,
So cruel cut down when still within her prime.
Why come you here, to me, once cast aside,
A tainted rose that once a lily loved?
LOGAN:
If marred you are, that mar must match my own,
For I was hers, as I know once you were --
We are a pair of ravens, flocking here,
Our wings stained black with mourning, feathers clipped,
So that we cannot fly, nor run away.
VERONICA:
The sea-god claims his own. Ah, my Lilly,
Who was too sweet to know salt water tears
Have never helped a single flower grow...